


Between Stimulus and Response (There Is A Space)

by blackidyll



Series: Big Bang and Reverse Bang Fics [5]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Developing Relationship, Ensemble Cast, F/F, Mission Fic, Post-SPECTRE, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9265871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackidyll/pseuds/blackidyll
Summary: Someone is trying to break into her flat through the window in Q’s sitting room, and Q squints at the shadowy figure on her phone screen. There’s something familiar about that figure, the poise and grace with which the person moves, as is the angle at which Q is viewing the scene from – as if Q has witnessed this person doing something similar a dozen times before, over a surveillance camera.Then the figure lifts her head and glances around the room, her gaze almost but not quite looking into the cameras as if she can guess where they are.Q is out of her bedroom and down the corridor in a flash, and when she stumbles into her sitting room there Bond is."What the hell." It's not a question, but Q figures the way she's phrased it works well enough:What the hell are you doing, andwhat the hell are you doinghere.Bond flashes her a devil-may-care smile. "It's been awhile, Q."(Canon fic, with the AU element that Bond and Q have always been ladies. In which a former Double-O agent and the current quartermaster learn to navigate the grey spaces of a relationship previously founded on professional grounds. Set after the events of Spectre; all Craig!Bond canon applies)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/gifts).
  * Inspired by [known associates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9291590) by [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili). 



> Written for [00Q Reverse Bang 2016/2017](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/00Q_Reverse_Big_Bang_2016_2017/)!
> 
> Much love to my wonderful artist, [beili](http://beili.tumblr.com/), whose beautiful artwork and artstyle and detailed comments and headcanons and references inspired these versions of Bond and Q. I've always had random thoughts about writing genderbent Bond and Q but I didn't have any concrete plots; beili's artwork and references have been inspirational, however, and so this fic is the result. Please view beili's artwork [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9291590), and do drop them lots of praises and love for their art! 
> 
> This fic is completed and consists of three parts and an epilogue. It is much too long for a one-shot, which is why I've split it into multiple parts. I will be posting the remaining parts over the next two weeks; I very much hope you enjoy this fic!
> 
>  **ETA:** [theproblemwithstardust](https://theproblemwithstardust.tumblr.com/) has created a gorgeous cover for this fic. Please check it out at [here!](https://theproblemwithstardust.tumblr.com/post/174411418839/for-those-of-you-who-dont-know-i-am-currently-in)

It's an innocuous little thing, an elegant twist of copper and rose gold, a charm that Q might hook to her purse or – if she were the type – hang from her phone case. It sits prettily in a velvet case, something Q might pass off as a gift if she didn't know exactly what it is.

Q knows her reaction to the panic alarm isn't exactly rational, especially considering the scale and complexity of her flat's security system, but she can't help glaring at the device over the top of her mug.

Moneypenny knows her too well now; instead of slipping in the topic during one of Q's rare breaks between her official Q Branch duties and her much more critical M-assigned mission, Moneypenny had confiscated Q's laptop with the gentle threat that she'll only return it once Q's had dinner.

She'd even waited until Q finished her sandwiches and had curled her fingers around a warm mug of jasmine tea before slipping the velvet box across the table, avoiding the circlets of tea and coffee stains.  

The panic alarm is not a Q Branch creation. Q would know; as Quartermaster, she keeps an eye on all Q Branch projects, and before that, she had watched over the inventories as one of the cogs that made the deployment of necessary equipment and backup to the field agents so terribly seamless in absence of a true Quartermaster. It's not a Q Branch creation – which means the arrangement is off-the-books.

Q sets down her mug and meets Moneypenny's eyes.

"What's changed?" she asks bluntly. It should be a ridiculous question, because what _hasn't_ changed? The Internal Security Council is having a field day weeding out all potential Spectre moles within governmental ranks and the Secret Intelligence Service is barely its own agency these days. M has managed to convince the powers-that-be that in light of the Spectre threat, it made strategic sense to keep the national-focused Security Service and the foreign-focused Secret Service separate, but until they've hashed out the details to reinstate MI6, they have no official headquarters and no official jurisdiction to act. 

Unofficially, M and the Secret Service are under greater scrutiny than before, and yet are expected to run all former operations without incurring more public notice. The Double-Os have been sent into deep assignments abroad; Q's just glad she never had any intention of moving Q Branch to the Centre for National Security building – the underground bunkers where she'd established Q Branch have expanded to include the Medical unit, Tanner's office and a rabbit warrant of Intelligence check-in points, as well as most of the Security Branch.

In Q's opinion, most of MI6 has enough on their plates without needing to pay special attention to a support staff, albeit a highly ranked one.

Moneypenny sips peaceably at her coffee. She looks as tired as Q feels – the cuffs of her long-sleeved blouse are unbuttoned and she leans her head against one hand, although her eyes flick periodically around the small pantry area, ever alert even within their makeshift headquarters. M chose to keep his office in Whitehall as a blatant reminder that MI6 is alive and kicking; in his stead Tanner bears the brunt of the day-to-day running of the agency, while Moneypenny serves as M's catch-all – his secretary, his contact point, and the deliverer and occasional executor of his orders.

"What's changed," Moneypenny says, "is that there were five persons associated with MI6 running around London the night we shut down the Nine Eyes program and declawed Spectre." She stares into the depths of her coffee for a moment, then sets the cup down to smile wryly at Q. "For people who normally work from the shadows, we were quite visible. The world may not know _who_ we are, but there was enough attention that interested individuals might know what we look like."

Q has been in a state of high stress since that night; she's used to the jitter of anxiety humming under her skin and the steady if heightened beat of her heart in her chest. It's the fact that a spike of alarm makes it through her perpetual exhaustion that makes Q sit up straighter, tuck her hair behind one ear restlessly.

Moneypenny makes a face at her, and pushes Q's half-empty mug of tea towards her with the back of her fingers. "You can take care of yourself and I know you went through the city's surveillance after that night, tried to obscure as much of it as possible. But you can't account for physical sightings and you don't have experience in active combat out in the field and sometimes, situations just happen. Let's keep our options open, all right?"

Moneypenny speaks with experience and Q might be stubborn, but she's no fool. She knows she can't take on the whole world, no matter how much she works at the illusion, and after Silva, Q has learned a lot about arrogance and the pitfalls that go with it.

"I know how to fire guns," she murmurs under her breath, and Moneypenny grins at her – when Q is reduced to bringing up her rather dismal shooting skills, she's already half-admitted that she's lost the argument.

"Yes, but you don't want to actually shoot anyone, do you?"

"Not particularly." Q wraps her hands back around her mug and draws mindless circles against the warm porcelain with the tips of her fingers. "Thank you for the gift," she says. "Would you like anything in return?"

Moneypenny flashes her a smile, and it's fortunate that she and Q have grown closer after the former M's death, when Moneypenny became Mallory's secretary and they bonded over the shared experiences of being support staff to the precocious upper tier of intelligence agents. Moneypenny is sharp and in addition to all her official duties M has in her a permanent bodyguard shadow – if the world can't see Moneypenny in that role, then none of them will give away that advantage by advertising it.

"I need a few things; you know how quickly I can go through my supplies when there's an event, and it's not like I can carry much in my purse."

Q runs a hand through her hair, twirls the curled tips of it around her fingers, a mindless action she always engages in when she's thinking hard. "I can recommend a few brands," she says, tugging the bushy tail of her hair over one shoulder, before sweeping the whole mass of it out of her face. She has customized weapons kits for the Double-Os, scaled down so they can be stashed under dresses or in small handbags but are no less effective; with 004 out on long-term assignment in the field and 007 retired out of the program, Q has plenty to salvage from. "Come by on my next break, and I'll pull something together for you." 

"I look forward to it," Moneypenny says just as Q's phone goes off, an alert signalling that one of her programs has finished running. Moneypenny doesn't quite sigh, but she does flick her wrist to stare pointedly at her watch.

"That was barely half an hour."

"You say that like you're not going to go straight back to Whitehall after I leave," Q says.

"Yes, but I'm going home after; you're going to sleep in your office again. Or not sleep, I suppose."

"The night is still young and it isn't midnight yet, which means I have a few hours before Asia wakes up." Q picks up her mug and downs the rest of the tea like a shot of whisky before dropping it and her plate in the sink; Q rarely takes advantage of her rank, but someone with more free time is just going to have to wash up after her. She goes back to the table where the little velvet box sits waiting for her, and tries to ignore Moneypenny's amused smile when she lifts out the charm and clips it to her phone case.

"It's not your usual colour scheme, but it's quite charming," Moneypenny says.

"It's... nice," Q manages, and Moneypenny laughs at her. "At least you didn't embed the alarm in jewellery."

"Well, we know you well enough by now; you never wear jewellery at work, but you do keep your phone with you no matter where you go or what you're doing."

Q thinks of electrostatic discharge and the conductive properties of precious metals, and how dangling elements have a tendency to snag when she most needs a steady hand; the only concession she makes to her vanity is how long she keeps her hair, and that, at least, she can easily pin back or pull up in a bun.

She pulls her hair back now, ties it back in a messy ponytail at the base of her head before she reaches for her cardigan, tucks her hands into the pockets to wrap the excess material around her like a protective cloak against exhaustion and the cold.

"I'll pass by Tanner's office on my way down to my workshop," she says.

"M says it's a go," Moneypenny says without batting an eyelash, and Q just nods. She has no idea what it's about, which is just the way it's supposed to be; the less they know about each other's critical assignments, the easier it is to avoid accidentally disclosing sensitive information.

She leaves Moneypenny to her coffee, and takes the stairs instead of the elevator, relishing the opportunity to stretch her legs.

Q Branch and Q’s personal office and workshop are set in the lower reaches of the facility; Tanner keeps his office somewhere between the ground floor and Q Branch, mostly so he’s about equidistant from everyone else in the building. She raps her knuckles against the doorframe – where the door itself went, and whether Tanner deliberately removed it or chose that particular room for his office because it was missing, no one knows, but either way, it's a subtle but pointed message on Tanner's stance on transparency.

"M says it's a go," Q passes along dutifully when Tanner looks up, and watches a relieved smile flit across Tanner’s face.

“Good. That’s good news.” He turns immediately to his workstation. “If I send you a file, already encrypted, how soon can you get it through to our contacts at the Berlin branch?”

Q pulls out her phone. “Designation?”

“Z-type, priority one.”

“I set up that system, so within minutes. Send it over.”

She types swiftly on her phone, using her own brand of shorthand coding; the task is easy enough, but the panic alarm charm is an annoyance she isn’t used to, a subtle weight that swings to and fro as she types.

“Ah,” Tanner says. “I see Moneypenny gave you a souvenir from her latest trip. She told me it would be quite a _charming_ little object.”

Q glances up at the horrible pun. The file zips off into cyberspace, and she locks her phone and narrows her eyes at Tanner.

"I know this was your idea."

"It was," Tanner agrees placidly, "But Moneypenny put in the work for it, with help from field agents and some of your divisions. No one knows who they're for, though." He tips his head meaningfully towards the security cameras.

Q bites back a frown – the first thing she did when she returned to Q Branch was to secure direct lines between M and his most trusted advisers; she'd programmed and set up the system herself to make sure no one else was tapping in, but after Spectre, they can never be too cautious. It's the reason why she's passing along messages in person like they're in some old-world spy novel. "We should concentrate our efforts on safeguarding M," she says instead.

"Security has a rotation of agents watching M's residence and office. We don't. If it makes you feel any better, I have one as well."

He holds his left hand out, palm up – Tanner wears his watch on his right wrist, which means his panic alarm is embedded in his cufflink, silver sleek and understated.

Q studies it with an inventor’s critical eye, and then nods her approval. “It looks similar to what I would create for the Double-Os,” she says, and sighs at her own version of the panic alarm. "I want to redesign this."

"If you have time," Tanner says in that easy, mercilessly honest way, and completely disregards Q’s scowl. "How are you doing?”

The thing with Tanner is that the question is a genuine inquiry about her wellbeing, as opposed to a veiled fish for information about Q's assignment. But Q knows that the moment she starts talking about herself the fatigue and the stress will hit her like a freight train, and she needs to be the Quartermaster right now, steady and in control.

"I need more hours than there are in a day," she says instead. "I've been focusing my efforts here in London, securing our headquarters, but 004 is running between China and Japan, and 0010 and 0011 are covering South Africa and the United States respectively. That still leaves four European countries, and I need stopgaps for all of them.”

Tanner frowns sympathetically, but doesn’t verbally respond. He knows what she has to work on – it’s blindingly obvious, for those who were there the night they confronted Denbigh – and it’s not something they will ever speak out loud unless they are sure the room is completely secure.

Q doesn’t receive missions the way the field agents, even the Double-Os, do, and so she doesn’t get a document detailing the mission directive. But if she did, it would contain just one line: _Primary objective_ – _Disable and destroy all traces of the Spectre-based Nine Eyes program_.

It's a tall order. Spectre is formed of numerous organizations and Nine Eyes the amalgamation of those efforts, agreed upon by the intelligence services of nine member countries. The United Kingdom is under tremendous heat now for heading the Nine Eyes program and then dismantling it – Denbigh might be a terrorist, but he was a British citizen and acting with governmental authority when he proposed the Nine Eyes program. The alliance might be off the table but the systems are still in place, and the other eight countries are hardly on favourable terms with the UK, much less willing to work with them.

Shutting down and preventing the Nine Eyes program from deploying is one thing – dismantling all the linkages and scouring every single scrap of Spectre's surveillance system from existence without being detected another intelligence agency is another issue entirely. Q is still human and she's just one person, for all that she's one of the most talented in her field.

She's barely keeping her head above water, but Q can't delegate this, not with the skill and discretion needed, and the danger involved. She splits time between working out of Q Branch and from her personal workshop at home, going at the task from several angles and through different aliases, giving her more space to manoeuvre in, multiple attack points and escape routes to choose from.

On second thought, the panic alarm might be a good idea, just in case Q wakes up to find a foreign agent or two out to assassinate her for hacking into their intelligence networks.

“Are you sleeping in your office again?” Tanner asks, breaking into Q’s thoughts.

“Maybe,” she hedges – does it count if she ends up passed out on top of her keyboard?

Tanner gives her a look like he knows exactly what she’s thinking, and reaches into a side drawer. He waves a little metal container, and throws it in her direction when Q holds out her hand.

It’s a little tin of peppermint drops, something she could pop into her mouth whenever she starts feeling sleepy and isn’t full of sugar or other additives. Q smiles down at it.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll see you at breakfast. 8 a.m.,” Tanner says, and Q knows they’re both pulling all-nighters again. She hopes he kept another tin of peppermint drops for himself.

She takes the long route to her office, deliberately walking past the Inventories and the main observation rooms, looking in on any of her underlings who are working late. She doesn’t linger, however, and when she’s back in her office Q has mostly set thoughts of her other Q Branch duties aside. Spread across the multiple screens are myriad different programs – a tracking system mapping out known Nine Eyes facilities across the globe, searches running in the background, a dozen other software systematically mining details and sightings and news releases.

She stands there for a moment, just absorbing it all; at the back of her head Q imagines she can hear the quiet ticking of a mechanical clock or perhaps the distinct whirl-spin of an older hard disk.

Q sets her hands on her keyboard, and gets to work.

\---

The days blur into weeks, and Q measures time by the number of servers and systems she breaks into, the cities of eight countries that she crosses off her mental list. It is perilous business, to get in and yet leave no trace lest she start a cyberwar or triggers some sort of diplomatic incident, and if Q thought she was tired in the days after Spectre's fall, it is nothing compared to how she feels now.

She misses sunlight, or at least daytime hours, and takes to wrapping herself in long overcoats and oversized scarves to ward off the perpetual cold and to draw attention away from the dark smudges ringing her eyes.

She misses _Q Branch_ , as silly as that sounds; she might be working from headquarters more often than not but Riley bears the lion’s share of the day-to-day running of Q Branch now, and Q hadn't quite realized how much comfort she took in checking in with the different departments, reviewing their various innovations and helping out when she has a moment to spare. Her check in rounds is still part of work but it's a breather from _her_ work; she still indulges once in a while, usually with some kind of sandwich or soup cup in tow, but never without that nagging sense that she's wasting time.

She would miss her cats more, but Q makes sure she returns home every third day at the very least, partly for her sanity, partly to make sure her private systems are running as they should, and partly so Kitty and Tabby don't forget what she looks like. They're well able to take care of themselves even in her absence, with fresh water and kibble dispensing machines and the entirety of the flat to play in, and a secure way of leaving whenever they wish without compromising the flat's security. Q loves them fiercely, however, and she doesn't want them to become another consequence in face of her chosen career.

Q is near dead on her feet by the time she makes it home, and it's only through years of living with her cats that she doesn't trip and break her neck when Kitty winds demandingly around her ankles, only her gold eyes visible in the dark. Q scoops Kitty up, blinking owlishly at her living room; she’s fuzzy with fatigue but muscle memory kicks in well enough, and she punches in the codes to her security system, quickly looking over the logs while Kitty sinks her paw into Q’s scarf, kneading impatiently at it.

“I know, Kitty,” Q murmurs, her voice rough in her throat – she’d barely emerged from her office all day, much less spoken out loud, and she has a feeling she’s borderline dehydrated by now. “It’s been a few days.”

Kitty rumbles ominously, but settles down when Q makes for the kitchen. Tabby is sleeping on the countertop, and her green eyes blink slowly open when Q scratches her ears, chirping a question at Q when she sinks her fingers carefully into Kitty’s fur.

“I’m better now that I’m home,” Q says to her, and spends a blissful handful of minutes just patting her cats until Kitty gets tired of the attention, clawing Q’s scarf once more for good measure before wiggling free. Q remembers then that her joints are stiff after a day hunched over her laptop and she’s _still_ thirsty.

She checks the cats’ food bowls as she downs a glass of water, peering out into her sitting room to check their water bowls as well. Then, she shucks her well-clawed scarf and her overcoat and her cardigan, and turns on the water so hot that the mirror in her bathroom is completely fogged up before she even steps under the water.

By the time she gets out of the shower and blows her hair dry into a wavy half-damp mess that she ties off in a side tail to deal with in the morning, Q feels alive and marginally human again, although she knows the crash will hit her in about half an hour. She’s contemplating whether to log into Q-net for some remote motherhenning over Q Branch or to just collapse face-first into her bed when her phone beeps, a cheerful little ditty in old school MIDI format. 

Q silences the alert, completely awake now, pulling up all the security logs even as she activates a command on her phone, one that triggers a speaker that emits a low-pitched, inaudible tone – to the human ear, that is – that calls the cats to the kitchen, a protocol she painstakingly designed and calibrated in case an enemy did break into her flat and she needed the cats to retreat somewhere safe.

Deterrence is the first goal of an alarm system – sound the alarm to frighten off the perpetrator, or at least make them reconsider their actions now that she's destroyed their advantage of secrecy. Instead Q uses a silent system, one that alerts only her and powers up the rest of her safeguards, because Q works for _MI6_ , where discretion is a law onto itself, and because Q _works_ for MI6.

Like the field agents, she chases adrenaline rushes as well.

The little panic alarm charm swings from Q’s phone, glowing in the warm lamp light; Q ignores it and reaches for the taser pen on her dresser, studying the camera feeds.

Someone is trying to break into her flat through the window in Q’s sitting room, and Q squints at the shadowy figure on her phone screen, about two seconds away from activating the _incapacitating but non-fatal_ part of her security system. There’s something familiar about that figure, the poise and grace with which the person moves, as is the angle at which Q is viewing the scene from – as if Q has witnessed this person doing something similar a dozen times before, over a surveillance camera.

Then the figure lifts her head, balancing easily on the window sill, and glances around the room, her gaze almost but not quite looking into the cameras as if she can guess where they are.

Q is out of her bedroom and down the corridor in a flash, and when she stumbles into her sitting room there Bond is, sliding the window shut behind her, cutting off the ambient noise from the street and plunging the room back into cool silence.

Q should be used to such surprises by now – she works for MI6, after all – but one day she’ll develop a heart condition, and it’ll be entirely Jaime Bond’s fault.

"What the hell." It's not a question, but Q figures the way she's phrased it works well enough: _What the hell are you doing,_ and _what the hell are you doing_ here _._

Bond flashes her a devil-may-care smile. "It's been awhile, Q."

"This isn't Q Branch's motorbay, and I don't have an Aston Martin for you."

Bond tilts her head to indicate Q's dimly lit sitting room. "I know where I am. I can't exactly walk into Q Branch or MI6 headquarters anymore, can I? All the Double-Os were given your address in case we have critical material to pass to you during your off-duty hours." She flips her hair out of her face, an easy movement that keeps her vision clear and leaves her hands entirely free. "I need medical attention, and I assumed that you wouldn’t want me drawing undue attention to your neighbourhood. I figure it's as good a time as any to pay you a visit."

"It may have escaped your notice, Bond, but I am the Quartermaster, not a medic."

Bond blinks at her, eyelashes surprisingly dark against her cheeks. "I'm quite certain you have a field-grade medical kit somewhere in the vicinity." She smiles, a flash of white teeth in the darkness. "I have tremendous luck, you know. You shouldn't bet against me."

There's a long, long pause.

Bond, technically, isn’t Q’s colleague any longer. Q has no obligation to help her, much less let her into her home. They had parted ways genially enough, the refurbished Aston Martin DB5 Q’s final gift to Bond; Q had made that Aston Martin her personal project, her way of assuaging her guilt over the horrible mishandling of Silva’s laptop, the way Q had let her own arrogance blindside her when her agent needed her the most. Q had felt a little uncomfortable giving away Q Branch resources but it’s not like she’d fixed the car for anyone else in MI6, and when Bond took the DB5 it had been the perfect resolution to that chapter of Q’s career.

How very like Bond to disregard all of that and crash back into Q’s life like this.

Q lifts her head to meet Bond's eyes.

"Are you bleeding?"

Bond just smiles.

"Bathroom,” Q says, swallowing back a sigh. “Down the corridor, first door on your right. There are clean towels in the shelves beside the sink.”

“Understood.”

Bond drops fluidly to her feet, turning back just once to make sure the window is locked properly. She walks with the barest hitch in her step; if Q hadn't known to look for it, she wouldn't notice it at all. Bond wears dark colours by default on missions unless the situation calls for something showier, and it’s clear she has kept the same fashion sense even in retirement. Tonight, she's in a black leather jacket and leggings with boots, and Q can’t tell if any of the dark patches on her outfit are the shadows playing tricks on Q’s eyes or if they are actual bloodstains.

Q turns away, heads for her workshop before Bond can reach her, already composing a mental list. Reset her security system, unearth her medical kit, and assist if Bond needs her for the patch up. Then Q can send Bond on her way.

Q wishes she can convince herself that it’d be that simple.

The bathroom is still a little misty from Q’s recent shower, and Q pauses a moment on the threshold to let the condensation fade from her glasses, the air here warmer than the rest of her flat. Bond sits straddling the side of the bathtub, the pale skin of her bare legs a shocking contrast to the rest of her attire – black dress under the leather jacket, which has been folded in half and placed safely on the countertop – and she holds a towel to her thigh, wisps of hair falling free from her updo and curling gently in the damp air.

Bond looks like a mirage, and Q stares at her and has absolutely no idea what to say.

The realization is like the shock of cold water thrown in her face, and Q curls her fingers tighter around the medical kit.

Q doesn’t ask Bond where she’s been or what she’s has been doing with her life after MI6, because they both know that Q could easily answer those questions on her own. Putting aside her prowess at surveillance and cyber-tracking, Q had injected the Smart Blood into Bond’s veins herself. She can track Bond anywhere in the world, but she doesn’t. Bond, dangerous and beautiful and so very clever, is nonetheless a civilian the moment she chose retirement over returning to MI6. She has a right to her privacy, as long as she doesn’t flag herself as a threat. Q believes in that right, but that doesn’t mean she wants to draw attention to it, or that she’s willing to explain her motivations if Bond asks.

Q isn’t entirely sure she knows how to talk to Bond anymore, without the connection that being colleagues gives them. It doesn't matter that Bond knows _who_ she is; Q takes MI6's vow of secrecy seriously. Bond chose to walk out herself, and Q cannot and will not speak of her work to the former agent.

The silence in the bathroom echoes very loudly in Q's ears.

"You picked a good flat,” Bond says, her voice reverberating in the enclosed confines of the bathroom, and Q startles despite herself. “Not excessively large, but you have plenty of space to retreat to. Other than the front door, you have at least two other exit points – good to give yourself more than one escape route, but few enough that the flat remains defensible. I assume the master bedroom is actually your personal office or workshop – the safeguards there look complicated."

Q stares for a moment longer, and then the words jump to her tongue and make it past her lips before she can stop herself.

"Thank you for that wonderful assessment," she says, utterly deadpan. "And here I thought I bought this flat because the location was good and the mortgage reasonable."

Bond just looks at her like a mortgage is entirely foreign concept, which, knowing the perks and benefits that Double-Os are entitled to, probably _is_. She doesn’t pursue the topic, however, and simply gestures for the medical kit, lifting the towel from her thigh.

Q swallows back a gasp. Bond had folded the towel, the only reason why blood hadn't completely soaked it through. Bond doesn't seem at all concerned; she frowns down the wound – a jagged cut about three inches long – and daps at the edges where blood continues to well sluggishly.

"I think you might need more than bandages for that," Q says, trying to imply without stating out loud that maybe Bond might want to consider a hospital after all. Double-Os hate taking orders from anyone who isn't M, and even then there is no guarantee that they will listen. Q doubts that has changed for all that Bond is retired now. 

"It's not as bad as it looks," Bond says absentmindedly, riffling through the kit. "Most of the blood on the towel comes from loosening the clots and cleaning the cut. It's not deep, and the skin's intact – some antiseptic, stitches and bandages, and it'll be fine." She glances up, her eyes very blue against her skin – she's paler than usual, but that might be from the glare of the bathroom lights rather than from bloodloss alone. "I’m sorry about your tub."

Q frowns at her, but then she looks into the tub at Bond's soaked leggings and the pool of bloody water around it, diluted to a pink against the clean white of the tub.

"Don't apologize unless you mean it," Q says on auto-pilot instead of the half-dozen other things she could have chosen to voice, and takes the kit back to spray her hands down with disinfectant so she can open the packets of thread and needle.

Bond gives Q a lopsided smile. The simple imperfection of it makes her look less like a portrait or a pristine Giovanni Lorenzo statue and more real, like a woman Q might see on the corner of London's high streets, being handed off into the backseat of a Bentley. Or, knowing Bond, intimidating the chauffeur out and sliding behind the wheel herself.

“I thought you were supposed to be enjoying retirement. How did you pick up the injury?” Q asks while trying to thread the needle; staying in the present with her questions should be safe enough.

“Drunk men, a little too much posturing involved, I got between them and the people they were harassing. It was an accidental hit, a broken bottle with a too-sharp edge – no one really noticed, in the heat of the moment. I must be losing my touch.” Bond finishes disinfecting the wound, and drops the bloody towel on top of her leggings. “I didn’t go looking for trouble, if that’s what you’re implying; trouble finds me.”

She isn’t even saying it in jest – Bond’s face is utterly serious when she holds out her hand for the needle.

“Somehow, I sincerely doubt that,” Q says dryly, trying not to glare at Bond’s blood-streaked hand and grudgingly handing over the perfectly sterile needle and thread.

Bond pretends not to notice and gets to work like she has no fear of infection, putting in a row of stitches neat enough that even the MI6 medics wouldn’t have a complete fit if they see it. Q supposes having antiseptic wash on hand and clean needle and thread is a grade above what the agents sometimes have to settle for out in the field. She's ready with dressing and butterfly bandages when Bond knots off and trims the thread, and tapes it all into place before Bond can get her literally bloody hands on them.

"Well," Bond says after a moment. "I suppose it's no panty hose or leggings for me until that heals up."

Q huffs out a breath of half-amusement and half-exasperation, and goes to wash her hands at the sink. "Get cleaned up. I’ll make you a cup of tea before you leave.”

Bond doesn’t say a thing about where she’s leaving to, and so Q doesn’t ask the question that’s lingered at the back of her head the entire time: _you left with Ms. Swann, who is a licensed physician before she took her specialization in psychiatry. Why haven’t you gone back to her for medical attention?_

“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to make that a cup of Irish coffee,” Bond says.

Q smiles and points at the bottle of ethanol in the medical kit. "That's the only alcohol you'll get your hands on while you are in my flat," she says sweetly, and shuts the bathroom door behind her.

\---

When Q checks after Bond’s departure, she finds the bathroom completely immaculate. Q isn’t entirely sure where – or how – Bond disposed her bloody clothing, but the astringent whiff of bleach at least explains how the bathtub’s so clean.

Kitty sticks her head around the doorframe, sneezes, and then backs away quickly, shooting Q an affronted look. Tabby, smartly, just curls in the middle of the corridor, as if to say she’s happy they have the flat to herself again, minus Q’s unfamiliar friend.

Q knows she lets Bond take more liberties than she should. She'd done so from the very beginning of their association – made the decision to put her career on the line for Bond, long before Tanner joined her in Q Branch's observation room and Mallory gave his tacit approval for her actions – but it's no easier now, to say no.

Back then, Q had a guilty-streak a mile wide, recriminations and the memory of a discrete funeral, closed casket, because the secrets would get out, of course they did, but it wouldn't do to advertise to the world that Olivia Mansfield was also M, the head of MI6 for decades. Q didn't see Bond that day, although the Double-O was there. All of them were, discrete shadows in the background, visible only out of the corner of one's eye. Q was surprised that they'd arrived and left together, although perhaps she shouldn't have been. Double-Os worked alone, almost never as a cohesive unit or in pairs, but they were essentially soldiers of the same rank and clearance, united in their loyalty to their commander.

And their commander had just fallen.

No one could possibly fault them for their moment of solidarity, their adherence to duty even in the face of tragedy. Q has watched over agents working out in the field long enough to recognize a purposeful perimeter check when she saw one. 004 worked the area closest to where Q was standing; she barely saw 0010 or 0011.

Q went home afterwards and sat in her workshop, going through every single course of action she could have taken that day: from the moment she picked up Bond's extraction signal to Silva's arrival with the laptop, to the chaos at the tribunal building and laying that breadcrumb trail to Skyfall, at Bond's behest. She mapped possibilities, work and worked at the many options until they tripped into conjecture, and then she stopped.

She'd always known that she couldn't afford mistakes. As an MI6 staff she tried to avoid any moments of weakness but she's finally realized that the stakes are much higher as the Quartermaster, because mistakes as the Quartermaster get her agents killed, and any weakness she betrays undermines her ability to give them what is often the only support they can count on out in the field.

She gave herself that evening to wallow in her guilt and her own grief, and then she'd done her very best to set those feelings to one side. There was a reason why _keep calm and carry on_ was the unofficial British motto – the advice worked, and so Q had calmly set her fingers to her laptop, systematically erasing personal traces of Olivia Mansfield from the M files in preparation for Mallory's official ascension to the position, and carried on.

She'd carried on very well indeed until the next time Bond asked her to break the rules in the Double-O's favour, and that's when Q figured out that she might have a problem.

And after tonight, Q has a feeling that it’s still a problem. She glances at her cats, feeling jittery and off-kilter.

“I am really too tired to deal with any of this,” she says. Tabby makes a thrilling noise in her throat; Kitty, on the other hand, just rams her head against Q’s bare ankle, as if to say _then why are you still up, silly human?_

Q laughs softly, and takes Kitty’s advice. One visit, as surprising and fleeting as lightning, doesn’t mean anything will change. She washes up the cups, has a belated moment of self-consciousness that she’d been in pyjama bottoms and an old casual jumper the whole time, and gives up, crawling straight into bed. Kitty and Tabby curl up next to her, and Q is asleep almost immediately, her sleep dreamless.

\---

With 0010’s help, Q shuts down the last traces of the Nine Eyes program in South Africa’s governmental circles. The African country was the last to join the alliance and had been reluctant to do so from the beginning; they hadn’t migrated their intelligence gathering systems entirely to the Nine Eyes platform when Spectre – and hence Denbigh – rushed to get the system online, and Q takes full advantage of that.

0010 goes back to his hunt for the remainder Spectre fractions still present in that country, and Q celebrates by taking a nap on the couch in her office.

Riley has to shake her awake, and Q peers blearily at him, groggy. He hands Q her glasses, which she puts on automatically – when that fails to make her magically read Riley’s mind, she just stares at him in mute appeal, her eyes falling back shut after a moment.

“Budgetary meeting. A joint one between us and the remnant MI5. I can’t attend this one on your behalf, unfortunately – you look like you need the rest.”

Q opens her eyes very quickly at that, startled fully awake. She yanks frantically at her hair, pulling her half undone ponytail free, and decides almost immediately on a braid to keep the wild mess of it in check.

“What time is it?” she says, peering around for her phone. “Status. Anything critical I need to know?”

“I have all your files. When you found the time to prepare them, I’ll never know, but I’ve reviewed them and they look fine. The classified files – well, you’ll have to wing that one.” 

Q grimaces at that; the term _classified files_ in their circle, where practically everything is classified or confidential, means Double-O or branch-leader ranked projects. MI6 has always received more funding for their classified teams and projects. It makes sense to Q, since the scope they have to cover is vaster than what MI5 usually has to deal with, but it doesn’t stop the barbed remarks nor, since their brief merge before M shut down the Joint Intelligence Service, the fierce arguments against that level of funding.

“If I have to let go of a section’s allocation,” Q says, tying off her braid, “Which division do you suggest I cut first?”

She avoids meeting Riley’s gaze by rummaging in her drawers; she’s slept over at Q Branch enough times that she’s amassed quite the clothing range.

Riley is silent for a long while, and Q ducks into her adjoining workshop to wash her face and change. Dress, legging, heels – she’s reminded of Bond’s attire and has to smile briefly, although her dress is cut more formally – and then she coils and pins her braid back in a bun. She exchanges her battered messenger bag for a sleek black laptop bag, and after a moment, untangles the panic alarm charm from her phone and hooks it to the bag instead.

“I would normally suggest Communications,” Riley says when Q returns, as if Q hadn’t left the room at all. “Since you’ve upgraded the Comms team’s equipment before and that team is best able to make do with what they have. But in light of recent events, the other branches will give you grief for it. You’re essentially the government’s living firewall now – you can’t give away that leverage.”

Q sighs. “I agree,” she says, although she’d wanted Riley’s opinion to confirm that. “I was thinking of taking an even cut from Weapons and from BioSci, and keep the funding for Inventories. We’ll slow down on research and innovations for the time being and make do with what we’ve already designed, keep working with what we have to keep our field agents supplied and combat-ready.”

“And the Double-O projects?”

“Those have to continue,” Q says firmly. The Double-Os can be precarious and destructive and difficult but they are the ones who shut down the most dangerous threats to MI6 and the United Kingdom, and Q won’t risk compromising their equipment or their support lines.

Riley nods. He presents her an Inventories garment bag, and Q has to hold back a half-hysteric laugh – she’ll bet her entirely supply of loose-leaf tea, carefully collected and coveted, that there’s a Kevlar-lined jacket in there, likely cut in the same style as a blazer or the peacoat she favours in winter when she needs to dress up.

“That bad?” she says, even as she reaches for the garment bag.

“Better safe than sorry,” Riley says mildly. If he didn’t know Q so well, he would probably be the one to suggest giving her a panic alarm; Q suspects he’s one of the individuals in Q Branch Moneypenny approached for help. “It’ll be a battle. All our interactions are, these days.”

\---

Q is the only branch leader to show up without her deputy in tow.

Tanner shoots her a quick, knowing look – he has the unfortunate task of chairing this particular meeting, which means he is expected to be a neutral party and has to rely on the MI6 branch leaders to argue for his cause – and she nods at him, before intentionally picking a seat right at the centre of the MI6 side of the table. She stacks her folders and her laptop bag on the chair that Riley would normally take, if he’d accompanied her, and spreads the pertinent files in front of her.

She could just use a tablet, but Q knows better than to take her eyes off this crowd, even if it’s just to pull up the relevant document. It’s best to have it all in front of her, where she can reference details with the quickest glance; besides, she’s always had a mind for numbers, and knows most of her information by heart.

It’s a raucous crowd, MI5 on one side, MI6 on the other, and everyone wrangling for space and authority both physically and metaphorically. Q has the dubious privilege of speaking for her branch first today, and the moment the clock ticks into the hour she looks to Tanner, and launches straight into her presentation when he gives her a nod. It’s a massive surprise when no one interrupts her concise, ten-minute report, but when she looks up at the end of it, she gets an even greater shock.

Q is used to the dismissive glances, the outright derisive remarks. It’s the reason why Riley doesn’t accompany her to these meetings, of his own accord; it comes from the days when Q was new to her position and the other branch leaders had kept addressing questions to Riley despite his clear deference to Q. It was difficult to break through that wall; even perfection was sometimes met with grudgingly given approval, and more often than not, the nebulous _they_ would find fault with her all-too-young age, the soft femininity of her features, things that had nothing at all to do with the actual work itself.

MI6 had come around eventually, even after the Silva incident, but now, Q looks around and sees every single pair of eyes fixed on her with varying levels of acknowledgment, cold and calculating.  

Riley is right, and so was Moneypenny, when she made the observation weeks ago. Word must have made it out amongst the intelligence agencies on the role Q played the night they took down Nine Eyes and beheaded Spectre; she is the United Kingdom’s human firewall, even if no one knows of her mission to take down the rest of Nine Eyes, and she is an overt threat now, to bring down to size or curry favour with.

Somehow, Q manages to stop herself from snatching her phone, and presses her hands firmly atop each other to avoid any fidgeting.

They can’t shake her. Like Riley pointed out, Q has leverage and all of Q Branch is protected under her, and so Q isn’t entirely surprised when instead of targeting Q Branch’s research divisions they go after the one unit not under her jurisdiction, one that she has only peripheral ties to: the Double-Os.

“I hear your elite agents are all on assignment abroad – is there a reason why such a significant portion of your divisions budget are still going to Double-O projects?”

Q swallows an aggrieved sigh – she’d covered it in her presentation – and reaches for the appropriate documents so she can repeat herself _and_ shove the physical evidence in front of the dissenting party.

She fends off a number of barbed comments and hostile digs about the way she runs Q Branch – the ones who want to curry favour wouldn’t do it here, and so Q is left with all the aggressive questioners – and is about to shut her folders as a pointed sign that her mandatory Q&A session is drawing to a close when one of the older MI5 branch leaders speaks up.

“How sure can we be that we can even trust the numbers she reports?” he says. “After all, we know how often certain MI6 members flaunt the rules and go behind M’s back.”

Q draws in a sharp breath. “What are you implying?” she says, just barely keeping a lid on her temper.

He snaps his fingers in her direction. “Assisting 007 despite her orders to stand down. That secretary of M pulled all sorts of records for her. _You_ went all the way to Austria to rendezvous with her. Denbigh played back the recordings for our director general, before he went to confront M about it.”

Tanner cuts in smoothly, although there’s a rare edge in his voice. “I might remind the floor that the Joint Intelligence Service no longer exists, and that Max Denbigh was a Spectre agent who would have given the organization unlimited access to our intelligence.” 

“Terrorist he might be, but the records he shared are genuine. What’s this about a refurbished classic Aston Martin DB5, then? Isn’t that squandering valuable resources that we can channel into other divisions?”

Q got herself into that one, she has to admit. She presses her hands flat against the table, stares the MI5 branch leader in the eye, and prepares herself for a long, long debate.

\---

Q sends herself home after that meeting, only pausing long enough to incinerate all the physical files before she leaves.

She doesn’t sit when she gets on the Tube, partly because she’s still restless with emotion and mostly so she can wedge herself in a corner and hug her laptop bag to her chest. She’s noisier than she should be when she lets herself into the flat, and quickly shucks off the Kevlar peacoat as if she can strip the responsibilities of the day with the coat.

“Kitty, Tabby!” she calls, half hoping that they’ll ignore her; she desperately wants their affection – or in Kitty’s case, casual aloofness – right now, but she also knows she’s barely keeping a hold of her temper, which makes her quite poor company at the moment. Q hears a distant meow – Tabby, most likely – and follows the sound into her sitting room where she finds yet another surprise waiting for her.

She’s not sure if she wants to stay and yell at Bond for breaking in again or if she just wants to walk out of the room, unwilling to deal with everything that Bond encompasses, and so she just stands dumbly there, her hand clenching into fists at her side.

“I’m quite sure your security system went off – I’m surprised you didn’t stop to check before you came in here,” Bond says from the couch, where she’s locked in a staring contest with Kitty, blue eyes to golden slit ones. She glances at Q, and Kitty immediately launches herself at Bond, who casually fends her off with a gloved hand. "Are you all right?"

It’s such a strange sight, the former Double-O sitting casually on her couch, Kitty chewing determinedly at Bond’s gloves and her claws digging into Bond’s beautifully knitted woollen sweater, that Q manages to speak through the angry lump in her throat.

“No.”

Bond’s head tilts, the elegant line of her throat highlighted by the glow of the single lit lamp in the room. She reaches out with her free hand, snags a pillow from the couch, pausing a moment for Q to catch up, and then throws it unerringly in Q’s direction.

Q has to unclench her hands to grab the pillow before it smacks her in the face.

"Punch it."

Q stares at Bond over the pillow for a long moment. "Pardon?"

"Put it up against the wall or the table, and punch it. Get the anger out of your system. It was what I used to do after they stopped me from going out to run – the wilderness was no place for a young lady to wander, apparently – and before I was legally allowed to fire guns."

Q’s mind is a blur. She can’t ever lose her temper at work and she didn’t have a chance to let loose with testing one of Weapons and Engineering’s more destructive prototypes, and she’s caught in that limbo state where she doesn’t know she wants to do anymore. So she follows Bond’s suggestion, sets the pillow carefully in her armchair so it won’t move around too much and then lays into it, slamming her fists into the cushion until her hands are stinging and she’s out of breath, her braid coming loose from its bun.

“Shit,” Q murmurs, and lets the poor pillow tumble to the floor.

Kitty makes a muffled _mrrrr_ of irritation, and then Bond is standing in front of Q, pulling her gloves off to take Q’s hands.

"You must be really angry to skin your knuckles on something as soft as a pillow," Bond comments clinically. She runs her fingers lightly over Q's hand, her touch cool and soothing against the abraded skin. "Want me to teach you some boxing stances? There are gyms in this neighbourhood if you don't want to use any of the facilities at work." She pauses. "Well, that I assume headquarters would have, when you rebuild."

"No," Q says. The silliness of punching an unresisting pillow coupled with the faint sting from her knuckles have knocked the sharp edge off her emotions; she still feels frustrated, but it no longer overwhelms her. "I have to take care of my hands – I use them most often for my work. I broke my left wrist once and it was very, very trying."

Bond doesn’t look away even when Tabby, clearly sensing that her owner is in a better mood, winds around their feet and rubs up affectionately against Q’s calves, leaving white and ginger hairs against Q’s leggings. “Long day at work?”

“Administrative meeting,” is all Q cares to say on the subject. 

“Ah,” Bond says succinctly. “I won’t take up more of your night, then.”

She doesn’t move though, just studies Q’s hands closely, as if assessing a field injury. Q lets her, quietly relieved to let someone else hold the reins for the moment, if only so she can just stand there without thinking for a few minutes.

“Bond,” she finally says, when the silence has dragged on for far too long. “Why are you here?”

Bond nods towards the coffee table. It takes a moment for Q to spot the gleaming bottle full of amber liquid, set under the table probably so the cats don’t knock it over.

“Your medical kit was lacking in drinking alcohol, so I bought you some good scotch in recompense. And then I stayed, because your cat wouldn’t let me leave.” Q glances down Bond’s thigh at the mention of the medical kit, and Bond smiles. “It’s quite healed now. It’s not like I’m doing anything strenuous to aggravate it.”

“Oh,” Q says eloquently. “This really is just a social call, then.”

“Something like that,” Bond agrees, and then finally lets go of Q’s hands. “You look dead on your feet. Go to bed.”

Q does feel oddly drained now that the anger has faded, and she folds her hands together, trying to trap warmth between them. “I need to feed the cats.”

“I think your little mechanisms have already done that.” Bond glances at the food and water dispensing machines installed in the corners of the sitting room. “Your cats certainly look quite happy with themselves, and I can entertain them if you think they miss being played with.” She grins at Q, and Q wonders what expression she has on her face right now, for Bond to look at her like that. “We had hounds at Skyfall Lodge, you know. I remember them fondly, even if I never had time for pets after that.”

Q just gives up after that. Bond is no longer a Double-O, but she’s reliable when she’s not being infuriating on purpose. She might just be in Q’s neighbourhood to kill time, to let the hours go by before she goes and does whatever she is doing now that she’s a civilian – Bond has the same look of patient acceptance she always gets when there’s nothing she can do but wait until time passes before she can move on with her mission. Q doesn’t care as long as she doesn’t break the law or try to break into Q’s workshop.

“You can take the couch, if you plan to stay here for a few hours. But if Kitty or Tabby decides to sleep on you, you have to let them, because this is their home first.”

It’s not the most coherent sentence in the world but it gets the message across, which counts as a win in Q’s book.

Bond watches her for a long moment, and then nods. “Kitty and Tabby?” is what she says out loud, however, and Q pushes her glasses on top her head, rubs a hand across her face.

“Short for Katherine and Tabitha. Play nice.”

“Just like Q is short for Quartermaster.” Bond’s smile is enigmatic in the low light. “All right. I’ll play nice.”

And even though Q isn’t a hundred percent sure what Bond has agreed to, the concurrence still feels vindicating, somehow.  

\---

They don’t cross paths very often, but Bond becomes a semi-permanent presence in Q’s flat after that. Q is never sure what governs her visits, but there are two constants: Bond never makes a mess, barely even seems to touch anything in Q’s flat beyond the couch and perhaps some glassware from the kitchen, and she always leaves something for Q, as if in recompense.

Q marks Bond’s comings and goings by the small packets of loose-leaf tea, the occasion snack from Q’s local bakery, tucked in a plastic container to keep them safe from the cats, and the odd bottle of beer, which Q likes better than the scotch, if only because she can’t afford to get too tipsy with her current schedule.

Bond as a free agent is a strange creature – still infuriating at times and incredibly enigmatic all the time, but much more careful of boundaries, when as a Double-O she would run rough-shod over rules, regulations and common social courtesy.

“You never ask me what I’m doing with all this spare time now,” Bond says, the one time she slips through the window when Q is already home, attempting to do some chores as she waits for her programs to finish their chain of searches. Bond holds a takeaway coffee cup in one hand and a pastry bag in the other, and she could almost pass for normal if she would just use the front door for once – Q has already added her to the flat's security systems, mainly to stop the alerts on her phone from distracting her when she’s at work and Bond slips in.

Q drops her armful of laundry on the armchair – since Bond and the cats have all but colonized the couch – and begins folding methodically, occupying her hands so she’s less likely to telegraph her thoughts with her body language.

“I have surveillance protocols for all former A-ranked and above field agents,” Q says bluntly. “You all hold critical intelligence and knowledge of MI6’s inner workings even if you are retired, and I have a system that tracks you – mainly your online dealings, any usage of your former MI6 aliases, contacts and assets, and any brushes with the authority. It’s all automated, and I don’t see any details. So unless you raise any flags, or heaven forbid, decide to go rogue, I don’t need to know what you’re doing.” She folds up yet another blouse, and then sighs. “To be frank, I don’t have the time to meddle with former agents, anyway.”

Bond studies her for a very long moment, taking calm sips of her coffee, head tilted. And then she says, “I’m not doing anything with my life that Eve would disapprove of.” 

Q’s head shoots up. Bond isn’t looking in her direction any longer – she’s deftly sidestepping Kitty’s attempts to ambush her feet, her expression never flicking away from cool and collected, although there’s a rare amused curve to her mouth, half hidden by her coffee cup.

“Do you visit Moneypenny as often as you do me, then?” Q can’t help asking.

“Not particularly. She already has to work hard to keep her MI6 identity from her boyfriend without a former agent dropping in to muddy the waters. You, on the other hand, have just a mortgage and two cats to feed.”

Q opens her mouth to retort that just because she’s prioritizing her career over her personal life doesn’t mean her flat and her time is a free-for-all, but Bond continues on.

“I call her every once in a while – she gets irate when I go dark for too long. She’s far stricter about keeping tabs on me, something about me turning up dead far too often for her peace of mind.”

Q wants badly to point out that Bond is in retirement now and that lethal situations should be a thing of the past, but considering how Bond gets into trouble just walking down the street, she has to agree with Moneypenny.

“She could ask me. I’ll always know whether you’re dead or alive.” The words come out quiet; it’s the only mention Q will make to the Smart Blood in Bond’s veins. Q wonders if Bond would have blithely accepted the procedure if she ever thought she’d have the chance to retire, and then carefully puts the thought out of her mind; dwelling on _what if_ s in their line of work is a secure road to leading straight to madness.

“You’ll only check if there’s a solid reason to.” The certainty in Bond’s voice isn’t detracted at all by the way she barely seems to pay attention to the conversation; Q has seen Bond in action often enough to know the former agent observes everything. “And Eve won’t ask.”

Using Moneypenny as a moral comparison isn’t a bad choice, and it’s just as interesting that Bond doesn’t push for more details on Q’s life. But then again, Bond would respect Q’s job and the precariousness of their situation – Q is already toeing the line by letting Bond in her space, when she’s running systems on MI6 assignments in her flat’s workshop.

It’s a grey space, where Bond knows of Q’s MI6 identity without Q needing to disclose anything, and where Q will never let a single word about her current work pass through her lips. Q, Moneypenny, and even Tanner are used to grey spaces when it comes to working with Bond, but there’s an element of intimacy this time, a comfort for Q to return home to someone who knows the truth but isn’t involved in the current chaos the way everyone back at MI6 are. Q can’t lean on Q Branch, not when she leads and protects them, and Riley, Tanner and Moneypenny have enough on their plate – they’re all just as overworked as she is.

Coming back to Bond, who leaves Q food, has no expectations and doesn’t comment when Q looks additionally frazzled and stressed is surprisingly freeing.

“Q,” Bond says, and when Q looks in her direction, gestures at the bag of pastries she’d left on the coffee table. Tabby, finally roused from her nap, eyes the madness that is Kitty’s attempts to pin Bond down, and then decides to join the fray, leaping for Bond’s coffee cup instead.

Bond laughs aloud, an unexpectedly musical sound, and moves like she’s in a fire fight, fluid and graceful and unstoppable, the cats dancing at her heels, and Q has to look back down at her laundry to hide her smile. A moment later, she says, “Please don’t break anything.  I can’t take the repair cost out of your pay anymore.”

“Did you?” Bond calls back, over Kitty and Tabby’s ferocious attacks. “I never noticed.”

A cat-sitter, an occasional supplier of food, and laughter in her sitting room; if all Q has to do is give up some space for Bond, then it’s not too bad of an arrangement at all, grey spaces notwithstanding. Q sets her folded laundry to one side and reaches for the paper bag of pastries. It’s best to snack when the cats are occupied, after all.

\---

The holding facility is located far in the outskirts, away from London’s bustling technological heart, and Q keeps the sound of Bond’s laughter in mind when she steps into the observation room, her eyes going instantly to the man sitting on the other side of the one-way mirror. 

It’s the first time Q is allowed to see Franz Oberhauser up close and in person, and she isn’t sure what to make of him. She knows his history, has gone through the files extensively – she’d been the one to compile the initial file on him, in fact, back when Bond was haring through Austria like a loose cannonball and Q and Moneypenny had been trying to determine if there really was a case or if the Double-O was chasing a literal ghost. That file has multiplied exponentially since M took Oberhauser into custody: everything they can find on his dealings as Spectre’s leader, cross-referenced to at least half a dozen other terrorist groups that MI6 has put down over the years, and of course, Oberhauser’s plan to completely decimate Bond’s life.

If Q thought the Double-Os are unhinged in their own ways, it’s nothing compared to the depths of Oberhauser’s obsession, silent and insidious.

“He’s a disconcerting one. I’ve seen a lot of criminal masterminds, stared into the eyes of sociopaths and fanatics alike, but he really is a special case of his own,” 0010 says from the corner of the observation room, standing between Q and the entrance as if he expects an attacker to burst in on them at any time. That action bothers many MI6 staff – it just as effectively blocks the only escape route, after all – but Q doesn’t mind as much as she normally would have; she’s used to the Double-O’s many protective gestures, knows that they only do so without orders for the people they respect or trust.

More than anything else, Q is honoured to have that trust.

“I’m surprised you’re not the one conducting the interview,” Q says, tapping her pen lightly against her notepad. Forget Faraday cages, firewalls or code scramblers; MI6 is not taking any chances with technological leaks this time around.

0010 gives a one-shouldered shrug. “He’s already far too fixated on Bond. According to M, there is no need to throw yet another Double-O in his path.”

The interviewer steps into the room, and Q recognizes him as a software and logistics technician from Tanner’s team, which means he’s _more_ than just a technician, and probably well-versed in interrogation techniques. Q wonders if they picked someone completely opposite to Bond’s profile on purpose – male, dark-haired and mild-mannered in a support role, without all the quirks of a field agent.

“I suppose that’s why I’m in the observation room taking notes on Spectre’s technological undertakings, instead of asking Oberhauser questions about the Nine Eyes program myself.”

0010 makes a soft noise at the back of his throat. “Do you _want_ to speak to him directly?”

Q stares at Oberhauser’s scarred face, the way he sits calm and relaxed as if he were entertaining a guest instead of being chained to the table for an interrogation, and shakes her head. “I’m quite happy to be viewing this from a distance.”

“Good,” 0010 says, and goes back to watching Oberhauser like a hawk, rare distaste apparent even in his neutral expression.

The technician conducts the interview well, matching Oberhauser’s seeming civility with deadpan disinterest. Q takes copious notes; Oberhauser has a sophisticated voice, but he uses technological vocabulary like it is second nature, the lingo of a hacker. Q can see why they’ve asked her to sit in for this session, when no one else has seen hide or hair of the man since his capture weeks prior.

It’s hard to figure out Oberhauser’s motive, why he would freely share information on Spectre when he could still easily make things very difficult for MI6. Even more disconcerting are the similarities Q sees between Oberhauser and Bond. According to both their files, they were brought up as foster siblings for several years, and it shows in their similar but contradicting mannerisms: the charisma, practically a weapon in its own right; the infinite cool, almost bloodless; and the ambitiousness, the need to challenge themselves to the utmost of their abilities.

After all, Oberhauser had woven a convoluted web of circumstances, independent of his lofty goals of world domination through manipulation of mass surveillance, just to fuel his need to destroy everything Bond loves.

The interview goes on for almost two hours, and Q fills half her notepad with notes, scrawling reminders on the back of each page on things she wants the technician to follow up on in another session. By the end the technician looks as stiff as Q herself feels, but he exits the room quietly, shutting and locking the door until Oberhauser’s keepers arrive to collect him. Q spins the pen idly around her fingers, trying to gather her thoughts. 0010 is a quiet presence in the shadows of the observation room – they’ll wait until Oberhauser is taken away before they leave.

The silence is only just beginning to settle in when Oberhauser looks up and stares right at Q, somehow appearing to meet her eyes even through the one-way mirror, and his gaze shocking, almost a violation.

Q has experienced such gazes before, but she also spends the majority of her time hidden behind surveillance cameras and her computers, cloaked behind anonymity, and for one infinite moment she freezes, her breath trapped within her chest, powerless.

“All the technical jargon.” Oberhauser’s tone is smooth and pleasant, and his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. “I wonder, do those of you behind the glass even understand?”

He pauses, head cocked, as if listening for a reply, and then continues on.

“Silly question. I know you understand,” Oberhauser says. “The Secret Service’s little pet hacker is in the observation room, aren’t you? You’re the devious creature that shut down the Nine Eyes program before Max could deploy it.”

“Q,” 0010 says sharply, but Q isn’t listening. All her instincts are screaming at her to stay still, to not draw attention to herself, to remain a smaller target, but they’re irrational. They’re irrational and Q won’t have them controlling her, and so she forces herself to her feet and then take a step forward, coming up to the one-way glass separating her from Oberhauser’s interrogation room.

Oberhauser’s single brown eye is more striking that his blind, cloudy white one, and Q stares at him, refusing to back down even if he can’t see her.

“Are you good friends with Jaime? Or are you just very loyal to your M, to rally to his side even after MI6 had been dissolved? No matter. I’ll remember you, little hacker.”

The interrogation room door slams open at that moment and Q startles badly, doesn’t crash right back into her chair only because 0010 is there, steadying her with a hand to her shoulder. Agents swarm Oberhauser’s room, unlocking his cuffs and securing his hands and bundling him out of the room in record time, and 0010 watches it all with sharp eyes, a spark of anger now joining the distaste, although his body language doesn’t betray any of it.

“Let’s go,” 0010 says, handing Q her notepad; Q only realizes she’s clutching the pen hard enough to leave indents in her skin when she has to open her hand to take the notepad from him.

The building is quiet as they walk through the corridors, devoid of the near imperceptible hum of electronics that Q associates with any other industrial-grade secure facility. They have to track a fair bit to get to the car, and Q slips into the passenger seat with quiet relief – it’s a Q Branch unit and her phone and bag are locked in the glove compartment, and being in the presence of her own technology is enough to make her feel in control again.

They’re halfway back to London before 0010 speaks up.

“Oberhauser specializes in mind games. He gets inside your head. You have to keep reminding yourself that that’s what he does, and ignore him the best you can.”

Q leans back against her seat. “Did he get inside yours?”

0010 doesn’t look away from the road. “He knows too much about us Double-Os, our backgrounds, our history. He went after Scarlet first – she nearly took the rest of his face off, she was that rattled. M barred us from having any direct contact with Oberhauser after that, not that we’re back in the country often enough for that to be an issue anymore.”

Q bites her lip. 004 specializes in disguises, slips from persona to persona like they’re her second skin, and Q can guess how disconcerting it must be for someone like Oberhauser to strip all of that back, to target 004 herself.

“I understand M’s directive better now.” She taps her knuckles against the notepad. “I’m not sure how much of this I can trust.”

“Well, if anyone has the best chance of unravelling truth from trap and fiction, it’ll be you.” 0010 pauses. “Or possibly Bond, if she was around. But the personal history with Oberhauser is as much a liability as it is an advantage.”

Q can’t disagree with that. “Any advice on—” she makes a vague gesture at her head.

“Not letting him stay in your head? Focus on your own knowledge of the truth, not the version he wants to present to you. And we get back in our own ways. He doesn’t show it, but it definitely irritates him that we still call him Oberhauser, instead of the mouthful of an alias of his. ‘Ernst Stavro Blofeld,’ was it?” 0010 grins, and the hint of teeth in his smile speaks of the Double-O agent that hides behind his pleasant, playful personality. “It’s petty, but sometimes the pettiest things have the biggest impact. By refusing to let him define his identity, we’ve stripped that bit of power from him.”

Q has to smile then. If anyone knows about the importance of names and identities, it would be the Double-Os, who earn their numbered designations and – with the exception of Bond – hold it until their deaths.

And 0010 knows she’d understand. After all, Q defined herself by her online aliases almost exclusively long before she ever became the Quartermaster.  

“You’re smiling. That’s good,” 0010 says. “Now that that encounter is behind us, I have to ask – where are you sending me next?”

“I might supply you your equipment and your weapons kit, 0010, but I don’t have the authority to deploy Double-Os on missions.”

0010 snorts. “Please, we all know M is so tied up in the political web and ensuring we even have an agency to return to that Moneypenny is answering half our requests on his behalf. M has made dismantling Spectre the Double-O team’s top priority. You’re the one who decides which Spectre hotspots we need to target next, and M will take your recommendation as final. Cape Town was nice – lovely weather – but 004 and 0011 both have a long list of cities to work through and I need to pull my weight. So. Where are you sending me next, Quartermaster?”

Q should have expected this, perhaps. The moment she, Moneypenny and Tanner packed up all their belongings and followed M out into the night to rendezvous with Bond to take down the Nine Eyes program, they had marked themselves as part of M’s inner circle, the people who would fulfil the spirit of their duty even without the authority to act upon it. Back then, M had cast the other Double-Os far beyond the United Kingdom’s borders before the dissolution of MI6 to protect them; Q is sure they would rally to M’s side otherwise, but the fact that she had been there that night and they hadn’t seems to make all the difference.

The Double-Os will accept Q’s word, as they would Moneypenny’s or Tanner’s, as M’s authority in their respective areas of expertise.

Q looks down, studies her hands. She’s used to guiding field agents, at ordering them within the scope of their missions, but this is different. She might not pull a trigger in the heat of battle, but the Double-Os might as well be weapons in her grasp. She takes a deep breath, and makes the call.

“Pack your best suit. You’re going to Barcelona.”

\---

Despite the encounter with Oberhauser, Q feels unexpectedly fresh when she heads back to her flat. Kitting out 0010 is a step back into her usual Q Branch duties, easy and familiar, and the time of day is likely another reason – other than an odd weekend or so, Q is rarely at home during the day. She takes the long route from the nearest Tube stop back to her flat, relishing the feeling of sunlight on her face, a pleasant contrast to the chilly bite of the wind that makes it past her scarf.

If Oberhauser represents everything dark and malicious in Q’s line of work, then a walk through London’s streets, watching the public make their way safely through their day, is a good reminder of why she’s so committed to her career.

Q holds onto that feeling of conviction, lets it buoy her spirits, and so the cloying scent of blood and disinfectant when she opens her front door is like a slap to the face.

The sitting room is just a few scant feet beyond the entry way, and Q doesn’t need to be field-fit to make the dash in a few quick strides. She takes in the scene – the contents of the medical kit strewn across the coffee table, the towel Bond had lain down across the couch to catch any dripping blood, and Bond herself, stripped down to jeans and sports bra, treating what looks like a messy bullet graze at her side. Faint blemishes discolour her upper torso and her right shoulder; in a few hours or maybe a day, Q knows they’ll bloom into dark bruises like temporary tattoos on the canvas of Bond’s skin.

“You did not pick up a bullet wound just walking down the street,” Q says, her voice very calm and very steady.

Bond looks up at Q, her eyes terribly blue, her long hair down for once and tucked over the shoulder opposite to her bleeding side. 

“You don’t normally return from work so early.”

Q takes a shallow breath through her mouth and drops her messenger bag right in the corridor, pulling off her scarf and her overcoat. Despite the rush, she takes a moment to key in the codes carefully, the ones that activate her security system, reverses them so she – and anyone else in her flat – is locked in, instead of being kept out.

Then she sets her phone on top of her bag, and rises to her feet to help Bond with her injury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be posting the second part of this fic around Jan 18 or 19th, mostly because I'm travelling abroad at this time (I'm posting this on my phone from the hotel right now)! 
> 
> Feel free to drop me note on [Tumblr](http://blackidyll.tumblr.com). 
> 
> ♥


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The silence curls around them like a hunting cat, deadly still, a burst of caged energy held in that moment of potential. 
> 
> “What are you doing, Bond?” Q says at last.
> 
> A lopsided smile flashes across Bond’s face; it would be infuriating if Q couldn’t read the sentiment behind it: _Don’t you want plausible deniability, Q?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks ever so much for the comments on the last chapter - I hope you enjoy this one :)

Q will never get used to the smell of blood. She hopes she never does.

It isn’t as overwhelming as some of the reports say it should be, although perhaps Bond hasn’t spilled enough of it to get to that point. The astringent bite of the disinfectant certainly helps mask the scent, but it’s the way the trace lingers at the back of Q’s throat when she swallows, a faint coppery tang she can’t get rid of. Q can’t seem to get herself to breathe normally.

There’s a part of Q’s mind that tells her it’s likely psychological – she’d helped Bond clean up a fairly bloody thigh wound just a few weeks prior, hadn’t she? Logic tells Q that the bathroom is a smaller space, enclosed, that her sitting room, adjoined with the kitchen, is better ventilated, but—

She draws in another shallow breath, quick like an anxiety attack even though her heart rate is steady, and ignores the way Bond’s eyes track her every movement.

Bond looks like an actual medical patient by the time they’re done, bandages swathing the entirety of her abdomen and cooling patches slapped over the worst of her bruises; Q had silently stared her down when Bond made a noise of protest. At no point does Q ever suggest they head to the hospital, even though Bond’s current injury looks worse than the thigh wound – Q had let Bond take the lead, grimly assisting whenever she can, and makes a mental note to take a course on something more substantial than field first aid.

Oh, like she actually has the time, or like that won’t tip off at least a dozen people – Moneypenny and Tanner included – that something suspicious is going on in Q’s private life. She’s used to safeguarding her MI6 identity; the last time she’d taken on something dangerous in her personal life had been shortly before she was recruited to MI6, when Q was one of the most infamous presences on the darknet.

She leaves Bond to pick idly at her bandages – testing the give of it, her manoeuvrability while injured – and goes to the kitchen to fill a basin with solution and warm water. Her phone and her messenger bag call to her like a siren’s song when Q walks back to the sitting room; she ignores the urge no matter how much her hands itch for technology, any form of it, and sets the basin on a corner of the coffee table, gesturing at Bond to wash up.

Moneypenny might actually murder Q for not taking at least the panic alarm charm with her, but Bond isn’t the enemy.

Q has no idea what Bond is right now – an enigma, yes; a rogue agent rather than a former one, likely, yes; a threat, _yes_ ; but a threat to Q or MI6?

Well, that’s still up for debate.

“You’re faster and stronger than me, and although you are injured, I know you can disable me quickly enough so that even if I had my phone in hand, it’s questionable whether I’ll be able to sound the alarm in time.”

Bond pauses; traces of blood swirl around her fingertips, dispersing into the water.

Q folds her hands atop her knees. “However, I’ve placed this flat on lockdown. If you try to leave, my system will incapacitate you; I use both sound and shock disablers, so it doesn’t matter how physically strong any intruder is. You can try to cut the power, but I have two backups in place, and any tripping of the system triggers my secondary safeguards and sends an immediate alert to the Security Branch. So you’re stuck with me until I determine that you’re not a threat to MI6 or national security, and if you try to escape – well, you’ll still be trapped in here. With me, or my body, I suppose.”

Bond lifts her hands from the basin, the droplets slipping off her fingertips sending ripples across the red-tinged water. 

“You would be taking a huge risk,” she says, drying her hands on a corner of the towel still covering the couch, “if it were anyone but me sitting in your flat right now.”

“I try not to get into direct confrontations; I’ll never win that way. Attacking from the shadows, through technology, that’s my forte.” Q meets Bond’s eyes. “But you know me too well. Stealth doesn’t work on you. But occasionally, talking does.”

The low laughter is something Q often hears when Bond is on a mission, playing the role of the confident, untouchable seductress, but then Bond leans back, careful to keep her spine straight, and the illusion cracks, just a little. “I thought you would have a more lethal security system, considering the setup I suspect is behind your workshop door.” 

“There’s only so much I can do in a civilian living space,” Q points out. “The last thing I need is to call undue attention to myself with a few dead bodies in my flat. And like most of MI6 and the population of the United Kingdom, I don’t have a license to kill.”

She stares pointedly at Bond’s bandaged side – Q is going to have a dozen problems on her hand if Bond, officially retired on military record, had truly left any bodies in her wake – and Bond inclines her head, but stays quiet.

The silence curls around them like a hunting cat, deadly still, a burst of caged energy held in that moment of potential.

“What are you doing, Bond?” Q says at last.

A lopsided smile flashes across Bond’s face; it would be infuriating if Q couldn’t read the sentiment behind it: _Don’t you want plausible deniability, Q?_

Q shakes her head minutely, and Bond studies her for a long minute.

“I’m hunting down the rest of Spectre’s presence here in the United Kingdom,” she says. “It’s easier to do that outside of governmental jurisdiction, and I can’t enjoy retirement properly until I’ve tied off this loose end properly.” 

Q lets Bond’s answer sink in – she wishes she could say that she’s surprised, but she really isn’t.

“You said you weren’t doing anything Moneypenny would disapprove of.”

“Eve is a sharpshooter, an expert racer who doesn’t mind smashing a few pieces off her vehicle if it gets her where she wants quicker, and she picks up my calls and goes behind M’s back to feed me information even after I disobeyed orders. Also, she’s the one who roped you in to investigate my foster brother, which certainly wasn’t under M’s instructions.” Bond tilts her head, and her pale hair spills over her bare shoulder. “If you’d asked if _M_ would approve of my actions, you’ll get quite a different answer.”

“That’s because—” Q cuts herself off, laces her fingers together, thinking. There’s a fine line to walk here, and since Q’s given up plausible deniability – not that it would have been a very solid foundation to stand on, not with her resume – she needs to be that much more careful. “Bond, you know MI6 well enough to know we wouldn’t close the hunt with just Oberhauser’s capture.”

“I do,” Bond agrees. “Two things. One, I know how obsessed Franz is with me. He’ll have concentrated much of his efforts on London, the heart of my territory, and on me, specifically. I would rather like to claim London back from him.’

“Two, MI6’s hands are always going to be tied – by the government, by public sentiment, and despite all the leeway we are given, by the word of the law. As a Double-O agent, I was held accountable not because of the consequences that would rain upon me if I stepped out of line, but on the penalties MI6 would receive in my stead. M – both of them – have always allowed the Double-Os to operate in that tremendous grey space, but—”

She flicks a glance at Q, and doesn’t continue. She doesn’t have to.

Politics. It’s always politics. No matter how much Q wishes it is otherwise, there will always be power struggles, backstabbing and manipulation of the worst order. M had honed his claws on the battleground of governmental bureaucracy before he became MI6’s leader, making him the best possible person to deal with the current situation, but MI6 is on incredibly shaky ground and they can’t afford the kind of fall out so often associated with the Double-Os’ – and in particular, Bond’s – method of solving problems. 

M keeps the Double-Os constantly out in the field out of necessity, but also to keep them out of any potential line of fire.

“Besides, I know how territorial MI5 can be; it’s twice now in barely two years that MI6 has caused a huge domestic scene, what with Silva’s attack at Whitehall and the destruction of both the CNS building and the former Vauxhall headquarters. So you can see why I rather stay retired and just make this my own personal project,” Bond says.

“It’s not exactly retirement if you’re running around getting shot at,” Q points out. “And you’re always going to be affiliated with MI6; it’s not like MI5 doesn’t know about the Double-O agents, former or not.”

“It gives you enough room to manoeuvre, however. You can tell the world that I’ve gone rogue and am operating entirely alone, which is exactly the truth.” Bond inclines her head, a movement that appears to make her shift closer without leaning forward or putting any strain on her injury. “Q, I didn’t break into your flat that first night to drag you into my cause.”

“No, you just broke in to get treated for an injury that in hindsight—” Q cuts herself off before she can get exasperated. “My surveillance on former agents isn’t invasive, but it should have been triggered by a fire fight. I didn’t receive any alerts on you, today or any time before.”

Bond smiles, the small secretive one like the flash of fish scales in water, tantalizing. “You showed us a dark map of London the night we went after Nine Eyes, dark spots in the city where no surveillance exists. I stole your physical copy, and it’s been useful. It turns out Spectre likes to hide in the shadows too.” The grin slips off her face, and it’s subtle, but Bond is in mission mode now, her eyes coolly focused when earlier they had been playful. “Neither you nor MI6 can be everywhere, no matter how extensive your surveillance network is. What you see is possibly what Spectre sees, and if I can escape your attention, work under the radar, then that’s a good chance Spectre won’t see me coming either.”

“I could stop you,” Q says, and Bond’s gaze flicks up, the room suddenly going very still. 

It’s not an idle threat. Bond can be as amorphous and uncatchable as a ghost, but Q specializes in trapping the intangible.

Bond is quiet. “Yes, you could.”

She should report Bond, or at least rein her in. Bond walked out of MI6 herself – she doesn’t get to throw off the leashes of the organization while still claiming the liberties her former position offers her. It would be a perfect argument if Q herself isn’t inclined to taking matters into her own hands, or if she didn’t have such a convoluted history with Bond.

There Bond sits on Q’s couch, not a single weapon on her, the swathes of bandages and bruises speaking volumes about how much of herself she’s putting on the line, and yet she does nothing to threaten or coerce Q into taking her side.

Q curls her hands around each other, slender fingers with the cuts and nicks she picks up from her hands-on projects, fingertips that could cripple a city with swift taps of the keys on a keyboard.

“Do you know what mission M assigned to me?” Q says.

“You were the only person capable of shutting down the Nine Eyes program that night, and you succeeded. I can guess.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me for help?” 

She’s caught Bond by surprise; the former Double-O’s eyes widen, the only indication that she’s taken aback, and Q wonders when she learned to read the nuances of Bond’s expressions. She wonders whether Bond has learned to read Q in turn; after all, Bond is exceedingly observant, and very, very clever.

This isn’t the same as dispatching 0010 on his mission. By not reporting Bond, by letting her continue her mission and offering to help her, Q is announcing her intentions to take full responsibility for Bond. Whether or not Bond takes the offered support, if Bond fails and the entire situation blows up in their faces, Q will take the fall for it.

Q is, after all, the one who still has a signed contract with the government.

“I followed M that night—” Q doesn’t have to specify which night “—even after MI6’s dissolution because Spectre was a major threat to everything I care for. That hasn’t changed. For something like this, something important, all you had to do is ask."

"I know. And that's why I didn't."

Q’s eyebrows shoot up. “When did you become such a martyr?”

It comes out sharper than Q expects, but she bites her lip and doesn’t take it back – it’s incredibly aggravating when field agents take the lone wolf route instead of calling back for support, like that support isn’t the entire reason why Q Branch exists.

Bond might no longer answer to MI6, but she’s still an agent running an incredibly dangerous mission, and she’s been breaking into Q’s flat for weeks – it isn’t like Q isn’t involved.

“I didn’t, and I’m not,” Bond says, matching Q’s sharp glare with a look of boundless cool. “I told you, didn’t I, back at the Hoffler Klinik, when I handed you that Spectre ring. I asked you for one last thing, and you went above and beyond that. Oberhauser’s men could have targeted you because of your association with me – I gave them all the visual clues that I knew you, and trusted in you enough to ask for your help.”

The memory flashes through Q’s mind – of being cornered on the cable car, her blood pounding in her ears and the white noise of the crowd she’d scrambled through, trying to lose her pursuers, the strap of her messenger bag digging into her hand and shoulder.

She swallows, tastes the faint coppery tang at the back of her throat. “They nearly caught me, but I managed to lose them amongst the ski crowd.”

“Did they,” Bond says, and her voice is suddenly dangerously low. “I think you missed out telling me that when you briefed me on your findings on the Spectre ring.” She’s quiet for a long minute, and then— “You risked your career and your life and you took down the Nine Eyes system. I won’t ask you for anything more.” She glances down at her bandaged abdomen. “Well. Anything more than your medical kit and your couch.”

Q uncurls her hands – she has the sudden urge to clutch at things in exasperation, and she’d rather not cut herself on her own nails. “You’re not asking. In fact, you tried very hard not to even let me know what you were doing. But the cat is out of the bag now, and I’m offering. If it makes you feel better, I’m not doing this solely to be altruistic. I’m taking down Nine Eyes piece by piece, and the other Double-Os are out hunting Spectre side-organizations in the other eight countries involved in the alliance. If you’re in the United Kingdom doing the same, so much better for the rest of us. We’re working in parallel – why _wouldn’t_ I take advantage of that?’

“If you don’t want me handling your outings to avoid tipping off Spectre, then I won’t. But if you’re going to risk your life for this, then you’re going to damn well get at least some of the same support the other Double-Os receive on their missions.”  

“You shouldn’t be telling me about what you or the Double-Os are doing.”

“You shouldn’t be running around London getting shot at, but here we are,” Q counters, although she does grimace – Bond is right, after all.

The silence that falls between them is both soothing and charged with tension at the same time, like the quiet ozone filled air before a storm breaks. 

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” Bond says at last, and Q feels a subtle weight fall off her shoulders, her muscles relaxing with quiet relief.

She takes a careful breath, and then says, “You could always stop, and let MI6 handle things the proper way.”

“No,” Bond says softly. “I can’t.”

Q thinks of Oberhauser’s mismatched eyes, the flare of calm maliciousness behind his smile, and his disturbing preoccupation with Bond.

“I suppose you can’t,” Q agrees, and that makes Bond focus on her, her eyes narrowing once more in contemplation. “So, you’ll come to me when you need help?”

Bond’s eyebrows furrow in a slight frown. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is. Now, do I need to do anything about the people who shot at you?”

Bond shakes her head. “It’s dealt with. Both them and the scene. And since you’re asking – I know it’s uncouth to ask for something I gave to you, but I’d welcome a glass of scotch right now.”

Q stares at Bond for a long moment, and then the realization hits her. She reaches for the medical kit, digs through it for the painkillers, and then tucks the bottle into Bond’s hand.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood – you’re not touching alcohol right now,” she says firmly, and then goes to get Bond a glass of water. “I’m going to need details on what you’ve been doing on your self-imposed mission, but for now, you should get some rest.”

Bond makes a noise that could be agreement or irritation, Q isn’t quite sure, but when Q gets back with the glass of water, Bond has packed most of the medical kit back together and folded the stained towel. She watches Bond swallow two pills, before chasing it down with the water.

“Take my bed. I just changed the sheets yesterday. It’s not good for your spine to sleep on the couch all the time—” Q would know; the couch in her office is quite comfortable, but she gets aches after a while “—and you hardly need to aggravate your injuries right now.”

“Really.” Bond arcs an eyebrow in her direction. “I’ve slept in worse conditions, and I know how you are about your privacy.”

“Other than the cats, all the things that truly matter to me are in my workshop. And it’s not like I’ll miss my bed when I’m working or stuck at the office.” Q glances at her watch – it’s early enough that she can get a fair amount of work done, and after Bond’s revelation, she knows she’s going to be restless until she gets a chance to check through all her system logs. “I promise I’ll kick you out when I feel tired.”

It’s on the tip of Bond’s tongue to say _we can always share_ – Q can see it, the way the flirtation is second nature. Bond isn’t exactly a conventional beauty; she’s tall but not overtly so, and she has the musculature of an athlete, more compact than slender. She does have a pretty face – beautiful eyes, and the strong but yet delicate bone structure to go with it – and she’s comfortable in her own body, knows the best angles to pose herself, tipping her head to one side for elegance, staring straight ahead for a more dominant look. But more than any amount of beauty what Bond has is presence, strong and magnetic, and copious amounts of charm to go with her inscrutable smiles.

Q is not immune. Her track record with dealing with Bond says plenty about how she’s not immune. But at least Q is going in with her eyes wide open, and so she’ll brush off the smile and the seductions, and focus instead on the rationale behind Bond’s actions – the competence, the dedication to their country, and the trust that they’ve built between them.

She might understand, but it doesn’t mean Q likes the flirtations, however.

But then Bond’s face softens into something wry and gentle in the half-shadows, as if she’s forgotten that Q can still see her. She murmurs a quiet agreement, and it’s a measure of how tired Bond must be that she doesn’t kick up more of a fuss about taking Q’s bed, and simply lets the unguarded moment tick.

Q stands there, just a little stunned, and then she goes to collect her devices and her coat from the floor, giving Bond space and privacy to pick herself up, the first moments of movement after treating an injury always the hardest.

She listens for Bond’s movements – there’s more of a shuffle in Bond’s step this time – as she disables the extra parameters on her security system, sets the network back to the normal safeguards, when the thought occurs to her. 

“Bond.”

Bond pauses.

“Have you gone back to your apartment at all since you ‘retired’?” Q asks.

In the dimness of the corridor, Bond looks like an ethereal wraith – fair hair, white bandages and patches against fair skin, and eyes like chips of glacier ice. She smiles; it’s entirely devoid of humour. “If I were Oberhauser, that would be the first place I would trap and keep a watch out for.”

She waits for a minute, just in case Q has something further to say, and then disappears behind Q’s bedroom door a moment later.

Q sits in her sitting room for a long while, until the cats emerge from wherever they’ve been hiding to greet her, Kitty planting herself squarely in Q’s lap, a discontented rumble rising in her chest, and Tabby curling anxiously around Q’s legs. She watches them for a while, dispensing comforting scritches; when they don’t settle down, Q realizes that rather than being agitated at the smell of disinfectant or blood that they are _worried_.

That side injury had looked terrible, and it hadn’t had a chance to clot over; Q wonders how far Bond had had to track to get back to Q’s flat after the fight.

She gathers up her cats in her arms, lets Tabby nose at her, whiskers tickling her face.

“I’m worried too. But at least she won’t be working alone anymore,” she murmurs.

Kitty gives a yowl of maybe agreement, and Q has to smile. She gives both cats more scritches, and then sets Tabby back on the floor, pushing gently at Kitty until the black cat jumps off her lap.

“Well,” she says to her sitting room. “Back to work.”

\---

Q is looping the voluminous folds of her scarf around her neck when Tanner ambushes her.

Perhaps ambush is too strong a word – he’d stood a polite distance away, waiting patiently for Q to turn in his direction – but it’s still startling for Q to look down to concentrate on her outerwear for one moment, confident that she’s alone, and then to emerge from the folds of her scarf to find someone suddenly there.

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that Tanner is MI6’s chief of staff for a reason; just because he doesn’t take fieldwork doesn’t mean that he isn’t field-ready.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately, clearly reading Q’s body language despite the overcoat and the scarf. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“We’ve been stuck in this messy situation for too long if I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have you looming in the background,” Q grumbles – Tanner has a tendency to escort the Double-Os whenever they head down to Q’s work lab, if only so he can remind the agents that they have a mission schedule to meet instead of losing them to the prototypes and innovations that are the constant lure of Q Branch. These days, she and Tanner are so busy with their respective jobs and additional assignments that they mostly see each other when Tanner needs to collect something from Inventories, or when Q swings by Tanner’s office with a verbal message or two. “Did you need something from me?”

“Actually, I have something for you.”

He hands her a slim case, and Q throws the tails of the scarf over her shoulders to keep them out of the way as she takes it from him, her thumb going automatically to the little biometric scanner along the case’s spine. It clicks softly open, and Q draws out a stack of paper – notepad pages with two sets of handwriting Q doesn’t recognize, and then several typed and printed sheets, a formal transcript of the handwritten notes.

“Oh,” she says, and carefully stores them back in the case, sealing it back up again.

“I know that look,” Tanner says. “Perhaps I should have kept that until after you came back from your outing. It’s rare for you to leave Q Branch in the middle of the workday.” He studies her for a long moment. “It’s good that you’re taking more breaks, lately.”

Q keeps her eyes on the case, tucking her chin into the scarf so he doesn’t read the mild guilt off her expression. Q’s occasional lunch breaks out in the city are working lunches, and the fact that food or any other form of a break is involved is because Bond is more persuasive – stubborn, really – than Q is.

“If you’re going to insist I check in at least once every fortnight,” Bond had said, “then I’m going to insist that you at least see some sunlight in that same amount of time.”

So when Bond isn’t breaking into Q’s flat in the middle of the night to use her medical kit or to kip on her couch, they meet up every now and then in a café or restaurant of Bond’s choosing. It isn’t exactly keeping the lowest profile – Q has a tendency to want to take over the surveillance of the area, but refrains to avoid tipping off Spectre – but Bond can be surprisingly discreet, and Q trusts that she’s secured the area before Q arrives.

After all, Bond is only properly reckless with her own life. She’s the complete opposite when it comes to those of her companion’s.

“I went home earlier in the day a few weeks ago and walking outdoors in the daytime was nice. It lifted my spirits, and when I worked that night it felt like I gained a new perspective on some old problems. I suppose I miss equipping the Double-Os outside of headquarters and catching little breaks that way more than I expected.” Q wavers for a moment, and then opts to take the case with her, stuffing it into her messenger bag. It might not be the wisest idea to bring the notes from Oberhauser’s follow up interviews when she leaves headquarters, but Q feels much more secure keeping her eye on them. “Would you like me to get anything for you while I’m out?”

Tanner waves off the offer. “I’m meeting M and Moneypenny at Whitehall later this afternoon to table some interim solutions about our budget situation. I won’t have MI5 trying to undermine the importance of our Double-O unit again.”

Q smiles, unbidden, under the privacy of her scarf. Tanner was cool and calm and unbiased during that meeting, as was required by his official role of the moderator, but that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t fight tooth and nail for any member of the Secret Service. And of all the different divisions and staff in MI6, Tanner is most protective over the Double-O unit.

He isn’t vocal or obvious about it, but it’s there in a hundred tiny little gestures and common courtesies, easily dismissed and so easily forgotten by most other people, who tend to be intimidated or awed by MI6’s most elite field agents.

Bond might no longer be a Double-O, but Q knows that if she tells Tanner of Bond’s self-imposed mission, the Chief of Staff would help.

She wavers, her hands fiddling with the straps of her messenger bag, restless. Bond hadn’t asked Q to keep her actions secret – hadn’t made any demands on Q other than the numerous café meetings – and Tanner has known Bond for a long time, possibly since Bond made Double-O status.

“Q, are you all right?” Tanner says, and nods at her hands when Q shoots him a questioning glance. “I haven’t seen you this fidgety in a while.”

Q stills her hands, slings the messenger bag over one shoulder, and then looks up at Tanner. “I’m fine,” she says truthfully, and decides that there isn’t a reason to pull Tanner into their rather unscrupulous arrangement yet. It’s enough that just one of them is flaunting the rules all over again for Bond; M allows his most trusted subordinates plenty of leeway, but even Q knows better than to push at that trust too much. “I just have a lot of things on my mind right now. We all do.”

Tanner watches her a moment longer, and then lets the matter drop. “That we do,” he says. “Go on, then; I won’t take up more of your break. Let me know if you need a hand with anything.”

“I will if you’ll do the same,” Q counters, because Tanner very rarely asks for favours, always the first to swoop in to aid others. Tanner smiles but waves her off with one hand, and Q leaves Q Branch with a surprisingly light heart.

\---

It must be a day for intelligence gathering, because there’s a folder under the tray holding the tea set Bond ordered ahead of Q’s arrival.

“Retirement must be quite the change for you,” Q raises an eyebrow at Bond as she unloops the scarf from around her neck, “if you’re actually willingly turning in paperwork.”

She doesn’t open the folder, just slips it together with the mass of the scarf into her messenger bag, conveniently obscuring the Oberhauser case from view. Bond has chosen a table tucked away in an alcove of the café, offering them a measure of privacy, and Bond’s taken the seat facing outward, allowing her a clear view of the exits and anyone approaching. They’re still out in the public, however, no matter how many noise scramblers Q brings with her; Q won’t risk reading any paperwork containing information on Spectre out in the open.

“I thought about mailing the lot of it to your flat,” Bond says, “but I think you’ll accept that even less than an attachment in an email. So, you get a hand delivery.”

She looks at Q like her act of discretion is a benevolence rather than common sense, and Q narrows her eyes, suspicious. Bond only ever brought back gifts – or hand them out in advance – if she knew she was going to break something significantly more valuable, physical items and laws included.

“You haven’t destroyed your pager, have you?”

“No,” Bond says. “After all, the latest technology from your department keeps getting better and better.”

“The pager is from me personally,” Q corrects. “And sometimes the older technologies work best.”

“You gave me a one-way pager. I can’t even send a message back to you.”

“Exactly,” Q says. “It doesn’t matter if they can trace the origin of the message – I’m always going to be based on London, it’s not like it’s hard to figure out you have ties back to the city – but since you’re carrying a passive receiver, no one can track you. And you’ve reminded me time and again on how critical it is that you stay off the radar.” She smiles wryly. “At least this way, I’ll know that it’s an emergency if you feel the need to contact me.”

“If I’m in an emergency, you’ll probably find out through the news,” Bond says casually, and Q has to shake off a moment of dissonance. She’s used to equipping the Double-Os outside of headquarters, at public spaces, and she has to remind herself that although she’s helping Bond that Bond isn’t a field agent anymore, that there isn’t an entire network of resources and support ready to help her if she’s caught in the field.

Former Double-O or not, Q will have to be more careful to safeguard Bond.

Bond is dressed down today, opting for shades of grey and muted ochre instead of her usual black on black on to blend better with the crowd. The coffee she nurses is so dack that light reflects off the surface like a mirror. The aroma of it is surprisingly heady for all that Q prefers tea, and when she takes a deep breath Q can feel her shoulders relax.

One of the perks of dining out with Bond is that Bond never, ever settles for anything short of quality. Combined with the fact that Bond picks locales suited more to Q’s taste rather than her own – or else they would likely end up at a high-end bar every time – means they end up in a fair number of exclusive but comfortable places.

There are already tea leaves in her teapot, so Q picks up the little kettle to pour hot water in. The blend Bond chose this time is light, a white tea, Q suspects, with citrusy undertones, and she smiles before setting the pot aside to steep. “Your paperwork. What do I need to know?”

Bond picks up her coffee cup, takes a delicate sip. “I’ve split the report into three sections. The first is an overview, most of which you already know of. You’ll likely be interested in the second section the most. I think that information would help our friends abroad, keep them abreast of our lives here.”

“And the third?”

“Anecdotes on my foster brother.”

Q’s eyes flick up immediately, and her hand reaches up automatically to adjust her glasses.

Bond’s shoulders twitch like she wants to shrug but can’t be bothered to complete the movement all the way. “It’s been decades, but in hindsight, there were warning signs. He never let any of his resentment show, not in any way I could notice at the time, but then again, I didn’t betray my personal feelings about the situation either. I suppose we both were very good at hiding.”

“He’s definitely honed that skill over the years,” Q says without quite thinking, and Bond’s eyes sharpen over her coffee cup.

“You’ve met him, then.”

“Observed. Just one time.” It’s mostly the truth; after all, the conversation Q had had with Oberhauser was entirely one way, and as rattled as she was her identity was always protected behind that one-way window. “I don’t fancy meeting him in person, ever.”

“I don’t either,” Bond says, and doesn’t clarify whether she means she herself doesn’t want to meet Oberhauser in person again, or that she doesn’t want Q to meet him. The first is interesting but not entirely unexpected, considering Bond’s decision not to kill the man on the bridge, and the second—

Well, in MI6, personal wishes versus what they needs to do in their line of work rarely ever match up. Q is more appreciative of small joys because of it, and she pours out the fragrant tea into her teacup, takes a long moment just to breathe in, the rising steam fogging up her glasses.

The silence that falls between them is peaceful, if a little charged with potential. Bond is quiet, a contrast to the usual cool and biting sarcasm she utilizes as easily as a blade in her hands, and Q knows she has a tendency to be less circumspect when she’s not speaking over a line or while on duty, and so holds her tongue. They can’t speak about work, can only refer to Bond’s self-imposed mission or anything related to Spectre obliquely, and yet this silence feels comfortable in a way that Q never imagined it would be, when Bond broke into her flat with a thigh wound and Q wasn’t sure if they had anything in common anymore.

Perhaps it’s the way Bond has slipped in and out of Q’s life the past few months, observant and attentive, until her presence feels as natural as that of Q’s cats – stealthy most of the time, startlingly loud and chaotic on occasion, but welcomed all the same. 

It’s this sense of familiarity that finally prompts Q to ask a question she’s harboured at the back of her mind for a long time.

“Bond,” she says, and waits for Bond’s eyes to meet hers. “How is Ms. Swann?”

Bond blinks once, twice, and then she sets her cup down. It’s only because Q is so used to watching her agents in action that she can tell she’s caught Bond off-guard.

“Madeleine is fine,” Bond says. “Other than that, your question is quite broad, so I’m not sure how to answer it.”

“You left with her when you took the DB5.” Q winces internally at the implication that she’d kept watch over the camera lines when Bond left Q Branch that final time. “I thought you’d gone off to enjoy retirement, but you’re partially back in your old line of work, and in the eyes of your opponents, Ms. Swann is a loose end, isn’t she? All of us involved that night are, but she’s the only one beyond our protection.”

The lopsided smile makes an appearance yet again, making Bond look both fond and amused. Q sighs, and tries her best to ignore it. “I could try to find out myself, but I don’t want to tip off anyone else who is searching, and going by her history, I doubt she’d appreciate any surveillance without her consent, even if it’s supposed to be for her safety.”

The other side of Bond’s mouth ticks up, her smile growing wider. “You are something else, Q.”

Q picks up her teacup, feeling oddly self-conscious, before she pushes the illogical discomfit back. “She’s involved whether or not she’s part of our team, and it doesn’t kill me to ask. You don’t have to tell me any details.”

“Madeleine’s fine,” Bond says again, not reacting to the snap in Q’s voice. “It was interesting travelling with her – we both needed the space and the time away. But she’s always been secure in herself, her wishes and her wants, and although she’s adaptive and well suited for your and my former line of work, she’s long chosen _who_ she wants to be.” Bond laughs quietly. “She figured out what she wanted to do next long before I did. She had a lot of things to say about my neuroses and complexes. Perhaps it’s easier to listen, coming from a friend rather than a cache of government-employed psychiatrists.”

Curious despite herself, Q says, “Did you take any of her advice, then?”

The smile slips off Bond’s face, her expression going pensive. “She told me that we always have a choice. I suppose I took that to heart.” Her eyes flick up, and just like that, the calm atmosphere is gone, replaced by Bond’s usual cool and amused mask. “She said quite firmly on multiple occasions that she doesn’t want to live in the world of shadows. What I’m currently doing – it’s partly for her. In the meantime, she’s in a secure place; she’s taken care of herself against those same shadows long before you and I dropped in at her workplace and turned her life upside down.”

“You did that,” Q can’t help pointing out. “I just followed you to try to mitigate the fallout of your actions.”

“And I appreciate that,” Bond says, and she watches Q now, her gaze strong and steady. “Madeleine is fond of reminding me that I don’t have to do everything alone. Between her, Eve and you, it’s been very hard to step out of line.”

“That must be such a trial,” Q says dryly. She draws a fingertip against the face of her teacup, enjoying the fleeting warmth against her skin. “Will you’ll let me know if she needs any help?”

“This is important to you.” Bond sounds faintly surprised.

“I work behind the scenes, manipulate situations, I can topple entire organizations without anyone knowing better. I have the skills and the influence to cause widespread destruction and I know how easy it is to abuse that power. And I don’t like it when it happens to anyone who doesn’t deserve it.” Q pulls her hands away from her teacup, laces her fingers together to stop her fidgeting. “Ms. Swann placed her life at risk, and from your own reports, was instrumental to our cause that night. She deserves my protection as much as any other asset we pull in to help with our assignments, if she wants it.”

Bond’s eyes are very blue even in the warm lightning of the café. “You really are something else,” she says. And then, answering Q’s earlier question, “I will.”

\---

Bond has an uncanny habit of appearing when she is least expected but rarely when she is needed, and so Q can only huff a breath of unwilling bemusement when she finds a pair of leather gloves on the coffee table but no other sign of Bond herself. Still, the gloves are a sure enough sign that Bond has been by and the courtesy of it is still a novelty, when Bond usually delights in falling off the radar and turning back up in the most shocking manner.

Tabby is curled comfortably in an expensive cashmere scarf that Q doesn’t own, and Q sighs as she strokes the cat gently. Bond started leaving the odd accessory behind after Q wrangled the truth out of her, and Q would feel guiltier about the cat fur and teeth marks and scratches if Bond actually looked like she cared. For someone who used to only wear bespoke dresses and jackets and painfully expensive and just plain painful looking footwear, Bond is remarkably blithe about wearing the evidence that Q’s cats adore her – or at least adore mauling her scarves and gloves and shoes.

Q attempts to tug the cashmere scarf free, but Tabby just gives her sad look, claws locked quite firmly in the plush fabric. Q can’t resist giving her a soft reprimanding tap on the nose, and Tabby twitches her nose once before getting up and dragging the scarf with her, meowing at Q once in protest.

“I know,” Q says. “It’s a tinkering day. One of our servers blew, and I had to remove and replace the entire unit.” Her hands always gain a metallic tang when she’s building systems from the ground up, and even though the server rooms are air-conditioned, Q still feels grimy with sweat and exertion. She would normally assign the repair and clean-up to one of her teams, but she’s yet to get rid of the paranoia the entire Spectre situation caused; there isn’t a point giving the work to someone else when she’s going to go over it all again herself afterwards, just to settle her nerves.

She gives Tabby a final scratch under the chin, and begins stripping out of her outerwear. Q keeps her flat at a slightly higher temperature for her cats, and so she doesn’t hesitate to yank her cardigan and blouse over her head, dumping it in her laundry basket as she heads for her bedroom, grabbing her laptop bag along the way. She adjusts her glasses back in place as she pushes the door open with one hip, hoping that Kitty won’t pick that moment to dart at her ankles and trip her over, and feels along the wall to turn the overhead lights on.

“Welcome back,” a voice says, and Q startles so badly that she slams her hand against all the light switches, flooding her bedroom with sudden blinding light. The laptop bag slides off her shoulder, catching painfully at her elbow, and Q backs defensively against the wall, trying her best to process the situation.

Bond is sitting up in the middle of Q’s bed, blinking slowly once, then twice, to adjust to the blaze of light. Her voice had been as clear as a bell, and if it isn’t for the way she’s sleep-flushed, her gaze less cutting and focused than usual, Q would think she’d been awake the whole time.

“Hell, Bond,” she bites out, letting her laptop bag slide carefully off her forearm to rest gently against the floorboards. “I’m going to develop a heart condition one day, and it will mostly be your fault.”

“Only mostly?” Bond quips. She runs a hand through her hair, swiping the mass of it over one bare shoulder to keep it out of her face. “You’re quite the sight yourself, Quartermaster.”

Q stares at her uncomprehendingly, and then she glances down at herself, only just remembering that she’s in trousers and her lingerie. Her cheeks are warm when she meets Bond’s amused gaze again, but Q steels her voice and just says, “You received my page, then.”

Bond’s eyes sharpen. “I did. What do you have for me?”

Q kneels to unzip her laptop, and feels immediately better with the familiar, battered device in her hands. She clambers on the mattress and sets the laptop at the foot of the bed; Bond shifts her feet, gathering the sheets around her to give Q space, rolling onto her stomach to brace her head on one hand, looking at Q expectedly. It’s an attitude that Q is familiar with; Bond elevates languid readiness to an art form, and Q has witnessed her go from relaxed and flirtatious to cold and calculating in a split second – her marks rarely have a chance.

It’s the first time Q has briefed someone in such an intimate setting, however.

“You were right about the way Spectre structures itself,” she says, unlocking her laptop and pulling up the relevant files with swift shortcut keys, well aware that Bond would scrutinize and likely memorize her every action. “Other than the individual organizations that often work independently of each other, the Nine Eyes program was one of their major initiatives, and your proposition that there is a high level Spectre Nine Eyes officer – a Max Denbigh equivalent – in each of the major nine governments involved in the alliance was accurate. We’ve identified and taken out those agents in Japan, the United States, South Africa and Spain; Germany has weeded out their mole themselves. We’re working on identifying the others, and there are still communication cell units scattered throughout each country…”

Q has to pause for a moment then, weariness and ire warring for control in her chest. It seems such an insurmountable task, even with Q devoting most of her efforts to the mission and the Double-Os working full-time out in the field. Oberhauser might be the mastermind of Spectre and removing him from the board had certainly crippled the criminal organization, but the individual fractions are still present and active, and somehow, they are all still loyal to Spectre’s cause. 

The only assuring thing about the entire situation is that Q has built Q Branch along the same lines; she hopes the individual divisions would go on well enough without her leadership, if it ever came to that point.  

“Here,” Q says, shaking the thought off, and turns the laptop to face Bond. “Denbigh and the Centre for National Security were the heart of Spectre’s operations here in the United Kingdom and so MI5 haven’t had much issue handling things nationally, but I believe I’ve found one of Spectre’s local fractions.”

Bond snags a corner of the laptop and drags it closer. “Media companies,” she murmurs, eyes intent on the report, scanning through the pages swiftly. “Control the news the public receives, and you can control them through fear, ignorance or propagation of false information. I thought I dealt with that when I blew up Spectre’s desert-based media centre.”

“Not quite. I’ve already informed the remaining Double-Os to look at possible Spectre plants in highly influential roles across the board, not just within the government – media, emerging technologies, infrastructure, power and energy. I’ve also spoken with my counterpart in MI5, but—” Q pauses, “—negotiations are delicate.”

The grin spreads over Bond’s face like water melting snow. “Are you sending me out to wreak havoc where MI6 can’t freely tread, Q?”

Q tries to think of an answer that won’t make her sound like she’s acting in a positively Bond-ish manner, but the truth of it is staring at her with an amused Cheshire smile upon her lips. “I suppose I am. How soon can you make it out?”

“I’ll leave tonight. I have to give you back your bed, after all.” 

“Did you just get back from… something?” Q asks, because it’s the first time Bond has actually slept in the bed since she’d been shot in the side – Q had fallen asleep in her workshop that night, and when she woke up seven hours later, groggy and stiff, she’d found Bond back on the couch, the dressings freshly changed, and Kitty curled up on the back of the couch like a silent black sentinel watching over the most frustrating person Q has ever met.

“Yes, but I’ll be fine. A four-hour nap on a comfortable mattress is quite rejuvenating.” Bond slides the lid of Q’s laptop shut, and then reaches over the side of the bed for the small hand-carry suitcase, pulling out her own laptop, a slim model that Q knows is quite high-end for its size and highly favoured by cyber-specialists who need to be mobile but can’t afford the time or expense to custom build their own unit. “I have several contacts in the area; I’ll see what they can pick up before I head over. If I could borrow your shower when I’m done,” Bond pauses; her eyes sweep over Q in the most clinical once-over Q has ever experienced, “after you, however. A hands-on day for you at Q Branch, I gather.”

Q waves her off. “Be my guest. There’s a bathroom attached to my workshop; I’ll wash up there.”

Bond tilts her head. “You’ve truly built your entire flat around your workshop.”

“Well, that room represents my career in scale form as well as my life before I walked through MI6’s doors,” Q says. “I don’t need to maintain a cover when I’m at home, after all. Kitty and Tabby are the only ones who know all of me.”

Bond hums. “Then I suppose I do too, at least a little. You’re different when you’re here, outside the notice of your team and other MI6 staff. It’s a subtle switch, barely noticeable, but it’s there.”

“I am not a puzzle for you to figure out,” Q says dryly, and fishes her phone from her laptop bag. The panic alarm charm clacks softly against the metal casing and Bond’s eyes narrow in on the charm. “Do you need permission to access my network connection?”

Bond’s eyes flick away, focusing back on Q herself. “Yes. Your safeguards are meticulous.”

“I’ve opened a line for you. Enjoy yourself.” Q clambers to her feet and gathers her laptop, turning off half of the overhead lights as she heads for the door. “The passwords rotate every hour. I’ll have to sign you back into the network if you take longer than that.”

“We’ll see,” Q hears Bond murmur, and then the door swings shut behind her.

Her workshop is scene of controlled chaos, and Q slides the laptop on the benchtop before heading to the attached bathroom for a quick but blisteringly hot shower. She takes the time to scrub her hair mostly dry as she scrutinizes her computer screens, and when she is satisfied that all is well around her flat, at Q Branch and in the general London area, bundles herself back into a blouse, folding the sleeves back to the middle of her forearms, before compromising with her most comfortable pyjama bottoms. Then she snags the weapons kit and the garment bag from the corner of her workshop, and makes her way back to her bedroom.

Q doesn’t hear the shower running, but Bond has yet to make an appearance; the laptop is propped half open amongst the mussed sheets, and Q longs to gravitate there, feels a little tempted to access anything on the laptop the way Bond has tried to break through Q-net and Q’s own private systems so many times before. Before she can decide either way, the laptop lights up with a dozen notifications and deep-toned chimes, the sound low enough to travel.

The bathroom door opens, wisps of steam escaping into the cooler room, and Bond strides right through the mist like an avenging valkyrie; she’s in covert wear, black on black again, and the only thing that mars the image are the towel thrown over her shoulders to catch the dripping water and the brush she has buried in her hair. She kneels by the bed to stare at the alerts, and begins pulling mercilessly at the brush with one hand, dealing with the tangles the way she used to occasionally handle her missions – through sheer brute force – while clicking through the notifications on the laptop with her other hand.

Q manages to endure twenty seconds of this before she snaps.

“Stop that,” Q orders, stepping close to pick the brush out of Bond’s hand; Bond lets her, the way she does every time Q has to pull a prototype or weapon away from her. Q tugs blonde hairs from the brush, and tips her head towards her dressing table and the stool before it. “Sit down; let me help you before you yank half your hair off your head.”

Bond’s face is inscrutable; she studies Q over the top of her laptop, and the glow from the screen lights up her eyes like they’re filled with electricity. Belatedly, Q wonders if she should have offered take over the laptop instead – she had been thinking of herself and her tendency to guard her privacy and her systems with fervour. For Bond, who falls into bed for missions but who rarely lets anyone else into her personal space when she’s off-duty, having someone touch her head and neck, where even someone like Q could snap her neck with a firm grip and a good twist, must be alarming.

Before Q can say anything further, however, Bond rises to her feet and sits gracefully at Q’s dresser, back turned towards Q, bracing the laptop on her knees. She glances over her shoulder at Q, and then turns back to her laptop, the permission tacit.

Q stands stock-still for a moment, and then her instincts kick in. She touches Bond’s shoulder carefully, and then runs her fingers through Bond’s hair; when damp, the entire mane of it darkens to a burnished gold.

It’s been a long time since Q’s done this for another person – her chosen career leaves very little time for interpersonal relationships, much less close intimacies like this – and as the silence lengthens Q wonders what Bond’s usual routine is, since she always appears picture perfect, whether on missions or just passing by at headquarters.

Going by her earlier actions, Q suspects it’s all about ruthless efficiency for Bond – perfection in the shortest amount of time possible, no matter what it takes – and so she’s doubly careful when she runs the brush through Bond’s hair, working in sections and starting at the tips and slowly working her way up to the crown of Bond’s head. Bond surprisingly doesn’t lose patience and Q takes her time, brushing Bond’s hair past the point where she would have stopped if she was working on her own hair, and stops only when her arms start aching.

“We’d best dry it, if you’re heading out immediately after this. It might be the tail end of winter, but the temperature is only going to plunge further tonight,” she says, testing her luck, and waits for Bond’s “fine” before turning on her hairdryer.

When all of Bond’s hair is pale and silken smooth in Q’s hands, she sets the hairdryer to one side and runs the brush once through the length of it, catching the last tangles. Then she takes up strands of Bond’s hair at the crown of her head and begins weaving a tight fishtail braid. It’s much easier to work with Bond’s hair than it is to put a braid in her own, and Q falls into a rhythm of gathering and weaving, the silence after the roar of the hairdryer calm and soothing in her ears, punctuated by the familiar click and clacking of Bond’s fingers moving over a keyboard.

Bond finishes with her tasks before Q is done with the braid; she shuts down the laptop and simply goes still. Her face, when Q glances in the mirror, is neutral but her eyes are half-lidded, and Q focuses back on the braid, unsure of what to make of that expression. Bond’s hair is much finer than Q’s and she has to hunt for an elastic band amongst the detritus of her dressing table, finally unearthing one and tying off the braid.

“Done,” she says.

Bond reaches over her shoulder to touch the braid, running her hand down the length of it until it slips out of her fingers. “I’m done as well. I need to head out. My contact set a meeting at an odd time tomorrow morning, and it will take me all night to arrive in time.”

“All right,” Q says, and takes a step back, out of Bond’s personal space. As Bond packs up, Q reaches for the garment bag, and when Bond turns back to her Q is holding a trench coat in her hands.

Sliding her hand between the folds of the jacket, Bond runs her fingers against the lining, then up against the collar. “This is one of your Kevlar jackets.”

“Yes. This is for you, when you’re out and about in public. I’ve patched you up enough times, so I hope you’ll come back without bleeding for once.”

Bond takes the trench coat from Q and swings it over her shoulders, sliding her arms through the sleeves in one smooth, continuous movement. She then folds the sides of the coat neatly together, buttoning and belting it up swiftly. The coat fits her like a glove, and she leaves the collar popped up to better hide the pale tail of her braid, the crisp edges of the lapels framing the curve of her cheeks.

“This is the best defence I can engineer and give you without putting you in conspicuous body armour,” Q says quietly, and then she hands Bond the slim weapons case. Bond recognizes it instantly; even though her hands come up automatically to take the case, she doesn’t open it.

“Q,” she says, and there’s a wealth of implications in her voice.

“Keeping it in the Q Branch inventories serves no purpose. It’s registered to your palm print; I’m the only other person who can use it, and I hate guns.”

“I’m no longer a Double-O,” Bond says.

“I know.” Q doesn’t bite her lip or curl her fingers through her hair or tap restlessly at her phone, because she’d thought long and hard about this and she won’t – can’t – waver in her decision now. Bond is no longer a Double-O, which means she does not have the authority to discharge a gun in public, and she doesn’t have a license to kill. Q is pragmatic and she’s a realist; she knows even without a gun of her own Bond has was ways of disarming and appropriating her enemy’s weapons, and that she’s likely had to kill throughout her Spectre hunt. Q could also argue that those are defensive measures, committed in the heat of battle, whereas giving Bond a gun now is a premeditated, calculated move.

Q is telling Bond to kill if she has to, to do whatever it takes to stay alive.

She makes her voice as light as possible. “After all, isn’t offence the best defence?” 

Bond has elegant hands, long-fingered and deceptively slim – they don’t betray the strength in Bond’s grasp or the confident certainty with which she wields weapons of all shapes and sizes. Her hand fits around the Walther PPK/S like she was born to carry it, and she removes the magazine to inspect the rounds before loading the gun again, sliding the weapon back into its holster and then unbuttoning her coat just enough to belt holster around her hips. The entire endeavour is over in less than a minute, and when Bond looks back at Q she’s picture perfect again, the trench coat hiding the line of the gun.

“I wouldn’t think that you would give your equipment to a free agent,” Bond says, her gaze very steady, catching Q’s eyes and refusing to let Q look away. “You were furious the last time I took a side trip and borrowed a prototype without proper authorization.”

It’s a deliberate sidestep, to steer the conversation away from treacherous, emotional grounds; there isn’t time for it now, not with Bond dressed in – what is for her – battle gear, ready to embark on yet another dangerous and destructive mission, and Q silently dealing with the morality of her actions. Q is caught between smiling and glaring at Bond, the former for the implicit kindness in not pushing the situation, and the latter for the choice of topic.

"I was angry because you took Q Branch's most prized prototype without giving me a choice about it, and because you crashed it in a river barely twenty-four hours later. Do you know how much proprietary technology was in the DB10?" Q takes a deep breath – she still gets flashes of pure fury when she remembers the short-lived and ill-fated Aston Martin. “I'm just grateful you were so destructive that the whole thing went up in flames – at least no one else could steal or reverse-engineer my technology from the remains."

“I’ll make sure the PPK/S is thoroughly destroyed then, if I break it.” Bond picks up her leather-bound suitcase and makes for the front door. The Double-Os have never been ones for farewells and Bond is the same; Q trails after her, leaning over halfway to scoop up Kitty before the cat can attack Bond’s ankles, and when she stops in the foyer Tabby curls around her feet, meowing curiously up at Bond.

All three of them shiver when Bond pulls open the front door, the rush of cold air biting at Q’s skin and catching at the half-damp strands of her hair; Bond pauses on the threshold, looking back at Q.

It hits Q suddenly then, with Bond backlit by the tinty hallway lights beyond Q’s flat, that Bond is standing there in the trench coat Q gave her, a lethal weapon Q designed and customized to just Bond alone strapped to her hip, and in the braid that Q put her hair in. Q knows she has a possessive streak, that occasionally she is even downright territorial. It doesn’t manifest very often – it stays at a low simmer, the way she watches over all of Q Branch and keeps her systems active and listening when her agents go deeply into a mission and fall out of contact for weeks at a time. There is always a part of Q that sings at having her agents back and safe under her sphere of influence; having Bond constantly in her flat has done wonders for Q’s instincts, and she feels fiercely gratified now, that if she can’t follow Bond where she’s going then the least Q can do is make sure Bond is as protected as possible.  

She swallows back the greedy possessiveness and tucks Kitty closer under her chin. “Stay safe.”

Bond’s eyes flicker, and then her hand comes up, warm fingers brushing against Q’s temple, tucking a curly lock of hair behind Q’s ear.

“I will,” Bond says, and then she’s gone, disappearing into the shadowy stairwell, the lingering warmth on Q’s skin the only sign that she hadn’t imagined past minute. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third and final part will be up around Jan 25th, which is the day after I fly back home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of the MI5 agents snarls. “You’ve always had far too much leeway, but you no longer have an agency backing you, to excuse your actions. You will submit to a formal inquiry on your actions, and you will deal with consequences now.” 
> 
> “I’d be happy to come in,” Bond says coolly, “so I can talk to your COs about how you nearly allowed an armed Spectre team to slip through your guard, right under your noses.”
> 
> A hiss goes through the assembled agents, both at the voicing of the terrorist organization and at the threat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is coming in a little later than I anticipated, but I very much hope you all enjoy this final part of the story. I'm excited for all of you to read what's coming up here :D. 
> 
> Happy Year of the Rooster to those of you who celebrate the Lunar New Year, and if you don't, please accept this as a gift for the new year anyway!

 

The cyber-attacks, when they happen, are quick and vicious. 

Q is down at the Q Branch pantry sharing a pot of tea with Moneypenny when all her mobile devices go haywire, her phone and tablet lighting up with such a long sequence of alarms the blaring never quite stops. Her phone is more robust than the tablet, which freezes with the multitude of information coming in, and Q barely has to glance at the summary of the alarms triggered before she’s snatching up her belongings.

She silences all the alarms, and in the ringing silence Moneypenny watches her, unmoving but poised on the edge of action, ready for anything.

“Get in touch with MI5 in case they need back up, and _don’t_ use your phone. I’ll contact you,” Q says, and then she’s running for Q Branch’s main observation room, her hands already pulling her laptop out of her messenger bag as she goes. 

She and the Q Branch Communications team have spent weeks layering safeguard after safeguard over Q-net and securing lines to the other branches, and Q knows they’ve kept constant vigilance after she stepped off the project to concentrate on Nine Eyes. The team is already in place when she swings through the doors.

“Status,” she calls, “Did they take, break or unleash anything that I need to know about?”

“They got through three layers, and we have blackout on the American lines. Assessing the rest of the situation,” Corrine hollers back, not even bothering to lift her head from her screen.

“I’ve switched critical functions to our secondary system,” Omen says calmly, his deeper voice cutting through the rest of the chatter. “We’ve got this, Q.”

“Good,” Q says, and ducks through the doors again, calling over her shoulder, “get me if it escalates to an orange alert. I’ll be at the workshop.”

There’s a chorus of acknowledgment, and Q leaves Q Branch in her team’s capable hands, switching her focus entirely to other matters. She had a set of wired network lines pulled to her workshop long before she moved Q Branch into their new underground space, and those are what Q connects her laptop to now, bypassing Q-net directly to look at the systems she normally accesses from her flat.

She would be impressed if she hadn’t seen the sheer scale of Spectre’s reach before – concentrated simultaneous attacks on three of the United Kingdom’s most secure networks is quite a feat. She hopes that the attacks on both MI5 and MI6 means that they’ve flushed all Spectre moles from their ranks, forcing the terrorist organization to strike aggressively rather than through more covert means, the way Denbigh had.

The attempt on Q’s personal system, however, means they’ve finally traced Q’s systematic destruction of Nine Eyes’s components to a source. Q has built her network on physical servers scattered across the breadth of the United Kingdom so she isn’t terribly concerned – instead, she observes their attacks, and then, clandestinely, begins tracking their signals, tracing the origin to a nearby English city before she pulls her systems offline, the safeguards all triggering upon that action.

Then she sends a message to a pager number she’s long memorized.

_Cyber-attacks this morning. Origin Leeds, near the Granary Wharf. Happy hunting._

\---

Two days after Q sends the page, there are reports in the business section of all major news outlets of the power going out over Manchester’s MediaCity for several critical hours, mostly detailing the financial cost of that blackout. Four days later, one of the local techy newsletters Q subscribes to sends a quick alert that the offices of an up and coming Leeds start-up have burned down – a shame for the company, who hosted the servers of the majority of its services in-house.

The days go by and Bond doesn’t appear back in Q’s flat, but there is no news of the perpetrator nor have MI5 descended on MI6 in a storm of righteous territorial fury. Q assumes that Bond made clean escapes from both incidences and that she is on one of her weeks-long side trips, and seizes the opportunity to further consolidate her hold on the United Kingdom’s cyber assets; after all, if she’s holding the reins, it means Spectre isn’t. She feels more secure walking the streets of London after that, knowing that there aren’t foreign eyes piggybacking onto the street level camera feeds.

Of course, that means Q is walking along one such street after visiting one of the cafes Bond introduced her to when she hears a loud crash, followed by another, and then the muffled but unmistakable sound of gunshots. There are shouts of startled surprise around her, heads turning in shock in the direction of the crash, before the crowd surges and begins, inexorably, to move away.

Q, far more used to the sound of gunshots and what they could possibly mean, slips towards the edges of the crowd, her overcoat tucked tight around her and her hands clenched around her phone, and makes her way against the flow of people, _towards_ the crash.

"Q—ueenie!"

Q startles, and then someone catapults out of the crowd, nearly crashing into her.

She reaches out and steadies her underling – because it’s one of her Q Branch team, the only people who would call her that name in that tone. The nickname is both endearing and infuriating; Q uses perfectly nice and innocuous aliases for her non-MI6 life, Annes and Sarahs and Kates, but _Queenie_ came around because a substantial portion of Q Branch can't seem to call her anything but Q, no matter where they are or who they are with. Q loves them for it, but then some of the other branches kicked up a fuss about codenames and disclosing them in public, unsecure situations, and after some sly, disparaging remarks about Q Branch, suggested the name as a compromise.

Q had wanted to snap that Q already stood for something and that that was _Quartermaster_ , but Olivia Mansfield was freshly buried in small ceremony that none of the dissenting faces in front of her had been invited to, and Q had focused instead on the screen in front of her – she had too much work to do and too little energy to spare it on people who only wanted to tear her down.

That her team adopted the name in public and made it their own, with their tendency to slur the first syllable of the name to transmute the sharp Q into something approaching the name, makes it just a little bit easier to swallow.

“Rico, is this our team?” she demands, because Rico is from Weapons and Engineering and that team rarely ventures out of Q Branch unless they’re testing a prototype of some kind, and if they’ve caused a public spectacle she’s going to skin all of them.

“No.” Rico has always been one of Q’s followers and he’s only a year or two older than Q herself, and he doesn’t protest at all when she tugs him back into motion, continuing on towards the crash. “The fives have an operation in this neighbourhood and they asked for some backup; I came along with our sixes’s supplies. They all hared in the direction of the crash, ordered non-fields to get out and merge with the crowd.”

_Fives_ and _sixes_ – an MI5 situation with MI6 backup. Q pauses in the lee of a side street to key in commands on her phone, accessing and taking control of all the surveillance in the area, and then she looks at Rico.

“We’re going there.”

“Okay,” Rico says without hesitation, patting once at his jacket. He’s Weapons and Engineering – meaning he has weapons and gadgets stashed all over him – and he’s one of Q’s, a Q Brancher – which means he’ll follow her authority above anyone else’s, except M – and Q smiles, an irrational spike of pride rushing through her. “How do we get wherever we need to go?”

The street is clearing out. Q knows how efficient MI5 can be; they’ve likely already secured the area, sealing off the hot zones and diverting public attention. But Q owns the area’s surveillance, after all, and she pulls up a program she coded when she first joined MI6, sends it scanning the feeds for the known MI5 and MI6 agents in the government database. Restricted to this small an area, it isn’t long before she gets multiple hits. When Q pulls up the camera feed nearest to those signals, she notes that there are more people there than her program detected as well as the sight of a very familiar blonde head just visible amidst the crowd, her hair worn loose instead of braided the last time Q saw her.

Q stares down at the image of Bond, surrounded by a veritable mob of MI5 and MI6 agents, the smoking ruins of a van – is that a motorcycle smashed into the side of it? – just visible in the background. She reaches out to snag Rico’s arm, never lifting her eyes from the screen, and begins running, the panic alarm charm a searing circle of coldness whenever it bounces against her skin.

The actual scene, when she and Rico stumble onto the fringes of it, is even worse than what Q had witnessed on screen. Propped up against one side of the alleyway are five unconscious persons, all in civilian clothing, although three are sporting tactical gear and empty holsters. There’s the acrid scent of smoke and overheated metal and an oily residue that makes Q want to scream at the entire crowd to _move_ before the van-and-motorcycle wreck blows up in their faces, but the sheer tension and hostility radiating from the circle of agents is almost more overwhelming than that.

And in the middle of it all, Bond stands cool and calm and unconcerned, the only sign of tension the way her eyes glitter in the mid-morning light, her eyelashes half-lowered over her eyes.

“—is unacceptable. You have always flaunted the law, but this is going too far!”

“I wouldn’t have to do your job for you if you were competent enough to do it yourself,” Bond says, and the circle of agents goes deadly still at the insult. She tilts her head back to indicate the van without taking her eyes off the agents in front of her. “You took so long to appear on the scene that I even had time to disarm them and drag them from the wreck so you have multiple someones to interrogate. I suppose I could have taken the time to call the governmental hotline with a tip-off, but if I hadn’t crashed my motorcycle into them they would have driven right into Conduit Street with a hit squad in the back of their van.”

A shiver prickles down Q’s back – she’d just come from the area, the café sitting on one of the side-roads off Conduit.

There’s a smatter of discontented muttering, and then an MI6 personnel speaks up, his voice more cautious and less accusatory. “What are you doing in London?”

Bond arcs an eyebrow. “I’m a citizen of the United Kingdom, I’ve had an apartment in London for the past – goodness, how many years has it been? – and my ancestral home burned down last year. Is it so surprising that you’d find me on London’s streets?”

One of the MI5 agents snarls. “You’ve always had far too much leeway, but you no longer have an agency backing you, to excuse your actions. You will submit to a formal inquiry on your actions, and you will deal with consequences now.”

“I’d be happy to come in,” Bond says coolly, “so I can talk to your COs about how you nearly allowed an armed Spectre team to slip through your guard, right under your noses.”

A hiss goes through the assembled agents, both at the voicing of the terrorist organization and at the threat.

Bond continues on like she hasn’t just kicked over the human equivalent of a basket full of angry vipers. “I suggest that you start doing your jobs now and handle the situation properly. Or else this would make a pretty little article, wouldn’t it. I can already see the headlines – _the newly re-established Security Service fails in its duty to safeguard the nation! Are we squandering our taxpayer’s money to fund defunct departments?_ I’m sure that will go down well with your superiors.”

If Q didn’t recognize most of her own agency’s personnel on sight, she would still be able to identify the MI5 fraction of the group by how angry they are getting. The MI6 personnel, on the other hand, have gone quiet. An altercation on UK soil falls within MI5’s purview and responsibility, and Bond has trapped them neatly – they can’t publically and legally implicate her without also implicating themselves, and they all know better than to force her to come along by force – a former Double-O is still a Double-O in spirit, if not in status, and Bond was the longest serving of them all.

“Bond acted in a manner as befitting a former agent in face of an imminent threat,” Q says, pitching her voice to project. She’s only slightly taken aback when all the agents whip around to stare at her – Rico shifts restlessly behind her, startled – and she gives silent thanks to all those joint MI5-MI6 budgetary meetings for practice on how to handle such an eclectic group.

“Quartermaster?” one of the MI6 field agents pipes up, and a murmur of understanding goes through the MI5 fraction, who wouldn’t have cause to know who Q is on sight.

“Protocol states that if a former agent identifies a threat and time is of the essence, they have the authority to act in the public’s best interest, either by disarming the attackers themselves or by assisting current personnel in the task. For the duration of that emergency, they are granted the same authority as they possessed during their tenure, unless countermanded by a current ranking governmental personnel. Bond acted accordingly, and furthermore she did not discharge any weapons – the shots were fired by the Spectre team.”

Q turns her phone and presents the screen to the circle of agents, playing back the surveillance footage from a few minutes prior, beginning with the blur speeding into the frame that is Bond on her motorcycle, the fluid way she leaps off before impact, rolling to her feet and going straight for the driver’s carriage even the van crashes to a halt. The angles aren’t very good but the evidence is right there on the screen, and Q allows the video to play a few seconds longer before she halts the video and pulls the phone back.

“I can send the file to the Commissary, my MI5 counterpart, if you’d like to review the details. But otherwise, Bond is done.” Q raises her voice a little, directing her next words at Bond. “We’ll take it from here. Thank you for your assistance.”

The MI6 team have resigned themselves to it, Q can tell – field agents have command out in the field, but this situation has moved into a grey area that touches on bureaucratic matters and internal politics, and Q outranks all of them there. The MI5 personnel, on the other hand, are clearly discontented and on the brink of protest.

“It’s a sad day,” Bond cuts in with a sharp little smile, a strange current in her voice, “when a support staff is the greater voice of reason out in the field than the field agents themselves.”

She pauses then, and no one dares to interrupt her; Bond has a presence so strong and magnetic that it’s often difficult to look away from her, although she has learned the best way to tip her head down demurely to hide her eyes, investing in a number of shatterproof sunglasses when she’s disinclined to do so. But now, with the wind catching at her hair and her chin tipped up and her gaze so frigid that some of the agents have trouble meeting her gaze, Bond is an entirely different beast – not the cool and aloof killer or the flirtatious seductress or the charming agent, or any other persona that any of them are used to.

“Unless you have real cause to detain me,” she continues, her voice never needing to lift above conversational to echo around the alleyway, “I’m leaving now.”

“Bond, wait,” an MI6 agent – the likely leader of the MI6 group – says. “How did you know that they were Spectre?”

“I didn’t stop to ask, but I figured it out afterwards.” Bond reaches into her coat pocket and then flicks something small and metallic in his direction. “Spectre agents are overly fond of jewellery with octopi motifs. Rather tasteless, in my opinion, but there’s no accounting for personal preference.” She eyes the agent appraisingly. “Are we done?”

The agent rolls the ring between his fingers. “Yes,” he says neutrally. “We’re done.”

“Good,” Bond says, and steps right into the crowd of agents, uncaring – they shy away from her, a ragged path opening more or less down the middle of the group. “Don’t worry; I’m leaving the city on personal business for the next several weeks. I won’t interfere again.”

She meets Q’s gaze briefly then, and Q gets the silent message behind the statement – a Spectre team appearing in such close proximity to where Bond is means a high likelihood that Spectre has caught Bond’s trail. Bond plans to leave London to shake Spectre off her tail, to disappear back under the radar.

Q knows she won’t see Bond again until she’s thrown Spectre off the scent.

She nods once, just the smallest of movements, and Bond sweeps past her, her head held high, as regal and serene as a queen.

Q knows the minute Bond moves out of sight, because the group of agents visibly relaxes. The field agents know what to do with the Spectre agents, so Q turns her attention to the wreckage behind them. “I can make arrangements for a clean-up team if you haven’t done so already.”

“The Security Service can handle this,” is the snappish answer she gets, and Q just manages to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

“Fine.” She turns to the MI6 field leader. “I assume whatever operation you were running with MI5 has been shelved for now. I’m taking my personnel back to headquarters with me.” She considers asking for a report of the interrogation of the Spectre agents, but decides it’s easier for her to pull the records herself later, either with her credentials or with her skills.

The agent nods tiredly, and Q gives him a sympathetic smile before gesturing at Rico to follow her.

They’re halfway back to headquarters, Rico silently following her down to the Tube station, when Rico finally speaks up.

“I love working with weapons and other equipment, but I’m happy to stay a support staff in Q Branch,” Rico says.

Q is in public; she doesn’t bother stifling her smile. “You and I both.”

\---

Memories are strange and fickle things: Q remembers the shape of the keys under her fingertips the very first time she understood that the world of cyberspace was hers to rule and manipulate, the quality of the light streaming through the wide bulletproof windows when M made her Quartermaster. In contrast, the night of her recruitment to MI6 is like a corrupted video file in her mind, singular moments captured in snapshot-like clarity and the rest of it a complete blur.

She’ll remember these details later: Q is in a sweater she’ll never wear in public, a comfortable chartreuse yellow monstrosity made of the softest yarn with a stylized cat image eating up the top half of the sweater. Her hair is down but slowly reaching the curly dried state where she’ll soon lose patience with it and will eventually pull it up into a tail. She has the main monitor in her home workshop at half-brightness, pondering 0010’s signals in France and the sudden reversal back towards the United Kingdom and considering if she should send a team out to meet him, and she’s playing idly with an old pager casing when the constant hum of machinery and electrical devices goes quiet around her.

It’s only for several seconds until the backup power kicks in, but the next thing Q knows she’s at the door to her workshop, her hand clenched around her silent phone, the other tapping frantically at the screen by the exit.

The camera feeds of the rest of her flat show Q nothing out of the ordinary – the flat is dark, night having fallen while Q was busy, and the only heat signals that of her two cats. Her workshop stays constant around her, but Q has built the workshop to stand on its own, with its isolated systems and power and backups. It is the most secure place in her flat, but staying there isn’t an option; she’ll never know who will get to her first – the Security Branch or the perpetrators – and Q doesn’t take chances with such odds.

The flat goes quiet a second time, the monitor in front of her going completely dead, and this time, the secondary backup doesn’t engage. Q raises her phone to her eyes – zero network connection, but then again, Spectre operatives would know how to circumvent Q’s precautions – and then she slams her phone into the reinforced walls of the workshop. The casing protects the phone itself, but the panic alarm charm shatters under the force.

Q doesn’t bother watching the broken pieces fall to the floor; she shoves the phone into the back of her trousers and whirls for the laboratory section of her workshop, sorting through the different equipment there through touch alone even as she shuts down her systems through voice commands. She knows how to handle firearms – she designs them and tests them long before the prototype ever makes it to a field agent for further fine-tuning – but Q knows better than to test her resolve in the heat of battle. She’s not a killer and she can’t afford to hesitate, can’t take the chance that going in armed with a weapon she dislikes will end up undermining her instead, and so she takes the taser, belts an entire toolkit of long and sharp-ish tools to her hip and slips her feet into her ESD shoes.

Then, she shuts off the lights in her workshop and slips immediately out of the door into the darkness of the corridor beyond.

Q keeps a list of protocols in her head, a series of tasks she needs to complete depending on what situation she’s in. It’s the only reason she doesn’t completely freeze in uncertainty; the unnatural silence puts all of Q’s senses in overdrive, and she can feel her heartbeat thudding in her ears even as her fingers seek out the locking mechanism on the door to the workshop. She presses her thumb against the biometric scanner, and then taps in the long passcode to engage the kill sequence that would wipe all her systems clean and set off the small localized explosives that she’s carefully calibrated to destroy everything else in the workshop without adversely damaging the rest of the flat or harming the structural integrity of the building. It’ll take even the most season hacker at least half an hour to break through Q’s elaborate safeguards, and so that’s the amount of time she has to disengage the kill sequence before they activate. 

If anyone gets to her before then – well, at least Q will take her secrets and her proprietary technology to the grave.

One task down, more to go. Q stares out into the darkness, blinking as if it’ll help her eyes to adjust faster, her ears straining for any sound. Whoever it is that’s trying to break into her flat hasn’t gotten through the physical locks yet, still choosing stealth over brute force, and Q quickly activates the silent call command on her phone, hoping against hope that her cats will come quickly and not cross any of her attacker’s paths.

She sees Tabby first, whose white ruff and ears are visible in the darkness, and only notices Kitty when the cat brushes against her ankles, her fur raised and tail puffed up. Q kneels to scoop up both cats, hopes their weight on one arm won’t throw off her aim with the taser—

Her front door crashes open with an almighty bang and Q slams her bedroom door open with the point of one shoulder, dropping the cats the moment she’s through to grab at the handle and bang the door shut, bolting it as she goes. In the distance, she hears muffled and distinctly pained shouts and can’t help the toothy smile – just because Spectre has shut down her power doesn’t mean her traps don’t have battery banks attached to them.

There’s a rattle at her bedroom window, and Q presses herself against the adjoining wall. The blackout curtains obscure her view – and her from the interloper – and she reaches out, snaps the reinforced window lock abruptly open.

The window swings open and the man falls through with a startled shout. Q slams the taser into his torso, is startled when the man slams to the floor but rolls, somehow staggering to his feet. He trips a moment later, Kitty letting out a sharp sound at the impact, and the next thing Q knows, a snarling streak of ginger and white is tearing at the man’s face, his screams mixing horrifyingly with Tabby’s angry yowls.

Somehow, somehow Q spots Kitty in the darkness, avoids stepping on her, and somehow, she manages to tear Tabby away from their attacker and slam the taser right at the man’s throat this time, the power dialled all the way up. The man drops like a stone, and Q nearly collapses with him, the adrenaline making her head spin.

“Shit,” she says, and her voice sounds breathless and distant in her own ears, like she’s not quite in touch with reality. There’s another crash somewhere out in the living room, and Q’s head goes up, Tabby mirroring her in her lap, and Q tucks Tabby to her chest, drops the taser to grab at Kitty as well.

Her closet isn’t exactly very big, but she’s neat about her belongings and more importantly, the closet uses heavy sliding doors instead of swinging ones. She presses a kiss to Kitty’s ears, holds Tabby a little closer, and then she sets them well within the closet and slides the closet doors firmly shut before they can react.

“Shhhhhh,” she whispers at them; the closet doors muffle the frantic scratching and the distressed yowls well enough, but Q still feels her heart rising in her throat, nearly chokes on it. “Stay safe, please.”

And then she rises to her feet, picking out a Phillips screwdriver from her toolkit, and looks around for her taser.

A shadow flits across the periphery of Q’s vision, and she turns just as a weight slams into her, catching her wrists. “It’s me,” a voice whispers in her ear, and Q doesn’t care, she wrenches against the vicelike grip not because she doesn’t believe that voice, but because she needs to _see_.

The grip loosens enough that Q can pull back. Bond just stands there, lets Q stare her fill, and only when Q lets her hands slacken on the screwdriver does Bond speak.

“All right?”

Q swallows once, and then forces herself to speak aloud. “Yes.”

Bond’s thumbs stroke once against each of Q’s wrist, and then she lets go, drawing her gun. She glances down at the unconscious man on the floor, seemingly dismisses him, and tilts her head towards the open window. “The way out is secure, but wait for my signal before you go. Take the furthermost stairwell. You’ll know what to do when you get to the ground floor.”

“Bond,” Q hisses, but Bond is already at her bedroom door, listening intently, before she unbolts the lock, opens the door and fires through widening gap all in one continuous, fluid movement. Q flinches, the gunfire retort startlingly loud in the enclosed space of Q’s flat, and then Bond is gone, moving down the corridor and firing systematically, the bedroom door falling shut after her. 

_What the hell is the signal_ , Q wants to scream after Bond all the same, but she chokes down the moment of irrationality and squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them Q has a measure of calm back again, and she snatches the taser from the floor, checks her glasses – miraculously still intact despite her scuffles with both her attacker and with Bond – and then her phone.

There is very little Q would not do for a network connection right now, so she can have her usual forms of power back in her hands. Instead, she tightens her hand around the taser and the screwdriver, and—

Something shatters out there in the living spaces of her flat, and Q decides that that’s damn well going to be her signal to leave.

She scrambles through the window – thankfully one that leads into the building’s public walkway, not the other side of her flat that is a sheer fall down the side of the building – and blinks rapidly under the tinty lights. She doesn’t see anyone, not her neighbours or any sign of her attackers, alive or unconscious or otherwise, and Q takes a deep breath and sprints for the furthermost stairwell. She’s not a marathon runner but she’s fast in short distances, fast enough to escape those Spectre thugs back in Austria, fast enough now, she hopes, to dodge any attack coming her way.

Slowing to a stop only when she approaches the ground floor landing, Q glances around her, trying to look for signs of what to do next. Bond and her cryptic messages – the place is deserted, and Q’s breath is harsh in her ears.

"Q," she hears, and she whirls around, her hands going up defensively, taser and screwdriver brandished before her.

0010 holds up his hand, palm facing her as in surrender, while his other stays firmly wrapped around his gun held in guard position.

“0010,” Q says, and her voice is curiously flat.

“We’ve cleared your building and your neighbours are safe. This area is secure,” 0010 says, and the sudden sense of relief rushing over Q is like a physical punch in the chest.

“You’re supposed to be in Marseilles,” she says, “although I saw your signal make a turn back for the United Kingdom.”

“Someone requested backup and I was the closest Double-O.” 0010 steps closer, eyes flicking around the open space systematically, before he gestures Q back into the shelter of the stairwell. “Intercepting a Spectre attack on our Quartermaster is definitely higher priority than hunting out Spectre cells.” He doesn’t make the rookie mistake of putting a hand to his ear, but Q has watched over her Double-Os long enough to know their mannerisms; 0010 shifts his head just the barest inch to the side, listening, and Q spots the discrete comms device in his left ear.

Q frowns, something about the statement bothering her. She lets her hands drop, tucking the taser and the screwdriver both into her toolkit. Anyone capable of getting past an alert Double-O’s guard isn’t going to be deterred by her makeshift weapons, and she hides the trembling in her hands by pulling sweat-damp strands of hair back from her face, tying it back in a messy tail.

It’s only when she’s pulled herself back into some resemblance of control that the dissonance worms its way into the open.

“0010,” Q says slowly. “It can’t have been more than fifteen minutes since the power went out in my flat. My systems send an automatic signal to the Security Branch, and I did activate the panic alarm Moneypenny gave me, but—” Q pauses, and then goes straight to the point. “How did you know Spectre was going to attack me? You knew about this early enough to get back here in time.”

If Q doesn’t know better, she’d think that the way 0010’s gaze drifts away from her is in nervousness, not a systematic check of their surroundings. “I wouldn’t say we knew, per say. But the likelihood of a direct attack was high enough this time to justify my return.”

“‘High enough this time,’” Q echoes numbly. “And no one thought to warn me?”

0010’s eyes flick back to Q and he pauses like a hawk on the brink of a dive, a motionless hovering that exudes power and potential. A moment later his head tilts down as if he’s come to a decision, and 0010 takes a step forward, close enough that Q’s attention narrows in on him.

“Oberhauser has always been obsessed with Bond, but the remnants of Spectre were more focused on hunting the person responsible for disabling and dismantling the Nine Eyes program. Technological centres like the one Bond destroyed in Morocco can be rebuilt. But you disabled and dismantled their greatest endeavour and you are more than capable of challenging them directly on their chosen playing sphere. Spectre flagged you as their greatest adversary months ago, but as we saw with Bond – they don’t favour direct confrontations until they reach their endgame.”

He tips his head skyward, in the direction of Q’s flat. “If we were sure of a concrete attack, we would have told you. We could have moved you somewhere arguably safer – Q Branch, a safehouse, or even one of the local MI6 offices out in Scotland or Northern Ireland. But you value your privacy and your independence, Quartermaster, and you are most confident in your own territory. Even this time, we weren’t sure until your panic alarm went off. Fortunately, we were close by enough to respond immediately. She made the right call.”

“‘She.’” Q curls her hands together – as the adrenaline fades from her system, she begins registering the bite of the cold. “Bond. She said she would be out of the city for the next several weeks.”

“Did she,” 0010 murmurs, and then his gun hand sweeps suddenly to the side, his eyes going predatory for an instant before he relaxes.

"Q," Bond says. There’s a shallow scratch across her cheek where someone must have nicked her with something sharp, but otherwise she looks pristine. Q feels something settle in her chest, the tension in her shoulders unwinding just a little bit.

"007," 0010 cuts in exasperatedly. "Where are the targets?"

Q lifts her head, the code name ringing in her ears like a bell. Bond and 0010 have moved to flank her, but to Q the world feels very strangely still, the nervous energy under her skin going cold and tight, and when she lets her hands fall to her side Q fell calmness draw over her.

She’s on the brink of something—

"Occupied," Bond says, "Security Branch arrived after us and they have things in hand."

And like the perfect key applied to an encryption, the pieces tumble into place, revealing the truth, plain and simple.

Q turns; something in her movements must catch Bond and 0010’s attention, because they go quiet, watching her. She brushes her hands over her sweater, rearranging the toolkit around her hips to a better position, and then she straightens her spine, lifting her head to meet Bond’s gaze straight on. 

"You haven’t retired. You've been on assignment all this while."

Bond doesn't blink, doesn't seem to even breathe, and Q experiences a moment of sharp disorientation, like she's staring at an optical illusion – Bond is at once a stranger and terribly familiar, her hair woven into a neat fishtail braid, adorned in the tailored trench coat Q gifted her, her eyes like chips of glacier ice in the near dark.

Q nods to herself. "I do believe that going off the radar to take down the rest of Spectre was your own idea. Your primary mission though – that was guarding me. Wasn’t it.”

She doesn’t phrase it as a question because it isn’t a question at all. 0010 said so himself: as the person who took down the Nine Eyes program, Q became Spectre’s primary target, and so M – it can only be M – had looked for contingencies to safeguard his most valuable asset in the cybertechnology war.

And somehow, Bond decided to come out of retirement – or never went into it for long – to take up that assignment. And she’d established herself as such a permanent presence in Q’s flat that Q never questioned her motives beyond the first layer and she should have known – after all, Bond is only ever predictable in her sheer unpredictability.

Q breathes out, her breath condensing in the air around her, and with that sigh it’s like she’s lost all the nervous energy that’s been driving her this long. It's not every day that one lives through an assassination attempt. Q has been chased and shot at and she's been assessed by a man who would happily kill both her and M before she'd had to turn her attention to the technological threat that was the Nine Eyes program, but it wasn't personal like this. She hadn't been singled out in particular – back then, she was just one of the many obstacles that stood in Spectre's way.

The last time - the only time – she'd felt this way was when Oberhauser stared Q in the eye through the observation window the single time she’d met him, and he was the one who ordered the hit on her, wasn't he? Or his loyal underlings decided to kill her in his name, and Q suddenly feels utterly sick to her bones.

"I'm going to go sleep in my office," Q hears herself say. "If you could maybe not touch anything else while you're dealing with—" _my would-be killers_ "—the situation, I mean, any more than what's already damaged. I'll handle any public fallout that might result from this."

She does it often enough for the field agents when they create a mess big enough to hit the news – it can't be that hard to do it for herself, right?

Goodness, her cats—

Bond catches her by the arm, her other hand settling lightly on Q's waist, and Q stares at her in confusion – when did Bond get this close? – before she realizes that she'd spun for the stairs, as though she could just sweep into her flat and scoop up Kitty and Tabby like it's any other day. She stands there stupidly for a moment, and then takes a step back, out of Bond's reach, and twists her fingers together determinedly.

"Kitty and Tabby," she says. "I shut them in my bedroom closet to keep them safe, but they must in a frenzy by now. Tabitha attacked that man you saw in my bedroom. And—"

She glances down at her wrist – no watch, of course – and so she digs out her phone instead, eyes going automatically to the status bar before she notes the time. Six minutes to spare, and a network connection, finally. Q lets her eyes fall shut for a second in relief, and then goes immediately to work, fingers flying over the small screen as she strips through layers of her own security, and then codes in the long sequence required to disable her workshop kill sequence remotely.

“I’m disabling the kill sequence and self-destruct mode for my workshop,” she says, falling back into her usual rhythm of narrating her actions as she works, “so it will be safe for the Security Branch to do whatever they need to do with my flat. Please warn them not to tamper with the workshop security or try to enter, however. 007, you know what my security systems are like.”

When she finally looks up, the two Double-Os – and Q has to quietly laugh at how quickly her mind makes the adjustment, how subconsciously Q has never been quite able to divorce Bond as a person from her identity as a Double-O – are looking at her like Q’s an explosive device, which for Double-Os mean they’re mainly focused on how to defuse the situation, and are only mildly worried.

"Q," Bond says.

"It's all right, 007." Q doesn't try to force a smile – it would be too much of a lie, and Q's too tired to be much of a liar right now – but she does lift her chin to meet Bond's gaze squarely. "I won't take it personally. You were doing your job. At least this time I know that the destruction wasn't intentional."

Something flashes through Bond's eyes, and Q lets her own gaze drop for a moment, before she raises it determinedly to meet Bond’s again. “My cats,” she says softly, because if anyone would understand how important Tabby and Kitty are to her it would be Bond, who Q suspects is fonder of the cats in her own quiet way than she’ll ever admit out loud. “Please.”

Bond is motionless for a long moment. Then she gives a sharp nod, and disappears up the stairwell in a graceful blur of black.

Q stares after her for much longer than is necessary, until she feels herself shiver from the prolonged cold. When she finally turns to regard 0010, the Double-O is holstering his gun, shrugging off his coat to drape it over Q’s shoulders.

"Let's get out of the open, shall we?" 0010 says. "I'll accompany you back to headquarters. Bond will know to send your cats straight to Q Branch."

“I haven’t forgotten how to get to headquarters,” Q murmurs stubbornly, curling her fingers into the coat’s collar to tuck it closer to her chin, her phone still clenched in one hand. The delicate chain that once linked the panic alarm to her phone snags momentarily on the wool, and Q finds herself missing that copper and rose gold charm, for all that she’d disliked it when Moneypenny first presented it to her.

"Ha," 0010 says. "Do you know how many people would have my head if you were attacked again because I didn't escort you back? Have a little mercy on your poor beleaguered Double-Os, Q."

It's a charade that gives Q the barest illusion of choice, of control, and she turns to look 0010 in the eye, to let him know that she knows. 0010 just shrugs at her, and curiously, that makes Q feel better.

“All right,” she says. “Let’s go.”

\---

She's seated at her workstation in the main observation room when Riley sweeps through the doors, a hissing and spitting Kitty in his arms, Tabby curling defensively about his ankles, wary. The latter’s ears prick forward the moment she catches sight of Q, and in a flash Tabby is across the room and in Q's lap, her front paws catching against Q's shoulder blades to butt her head up against Q's chin.

Kitty hisses viciously in sheer displeasure, and although Riley is as calm as ever Q does note with a distant, numbed curl of amusement that he crosses across the room a little quicker than usual to pour the infuriated cat into Q's lap.

"Kevlar jacket and gloves?" Q says wryly, trying to keep her face free from Kitty's insistent check-over, the black cat climbing carefully over Tabby to settle heavily on Q's shoulder, glaring angrily around the room as if daring anyone to attack her owner when she isn't licking at Q's cheek. She soothes one hand down Kitty's spine, and then cuddles Tabby, hugging the cat close like a security blanket.

"I like your cats but I'm not sacrificing my skin to them," Riley says. He shucks the gloves, careful to keep out of Kitty's potential launch range. "We cleaned Tabby up - one of your attackers will be spotting terrifying scratches – and treated Kitty for the bruises you told us to look for."

“Any updates on everything else?”

Riley gives her a sharp look, but doesn’t call out Q’s uncharacteristic non-action. She’d taken to the Q Branch systems the moment she changed into something more formal and manoeuvrable than her silly sweater and 0010’s coat, but after ascertaining MI6’s continued wellbeing in the cybersphere, Q didn’t manage to bring herself to check in on the state of her flat or to track the Double-Os and Security personnel still working there.

“They’re handling it,” Riley says. “It’s quite the operation, I hear – Spectre banked quite a lot on this particular attack. The Double-Os have followed the trail all the way back to its origin, the person directing the attack on you. The current leading theory is that that person is the next head of Spectre operations in the United Kingdom.”

Q thinks of Oberhauser, of Denbigh. The further they whittle down Spectre’s top tier leaders, the masterminds of Spectre’s operations, the better the chance they have of wiping out the organization for good. “Good. At least something good came out of this.”

Riley eyes her, and then reaches out to pull the laptop away from Q’s reach. It’s a testament to how much Q trusts him that she doesn’t kick him and snatch the unit back; he clicks through the windows she has opened, and then closes the laptop lid firmly.

“I’m really not surprised that you’re attempting to handle the clean-up for your own assassination attempt,” Riley says, deadpan. “But I don’t think medics would approve, and the therapists will already have plenty to say about this whole attack. I know how you are with psych evaluations, so I’ll deal with the clean-up.”

Q groans under her breath, although she also has to fight back a smile, albeit a somewhat manic one. The numb neutrality she often falls into where operations go south and she _needs_ to push everything aside to function is starting to fade, and Riley’s infinite calm and straightforwardness is a balm against the maelstrom of thoughts and emotions Q knows she needs to eventually process. “I didn’t have any psych sessions after the Denbigh situation.”

Riley’s eyebrows shoot right up. “That’s because MI6 was barely a functioning agency at the time. _Did_ something happen that night that you would need to see a therapist for?”

Sometimes Q forgets that the events of the night they dismantled the Nine Eyes program is still highly classified. As a support staff armed with a laptop, it’s easy enough to assume that Q would have helped the team from afar in her usual role of all-around handler, guide and back-up.

She doesn’t say a word, which is an answer in itself, and Riley slides the laptop back across the workstation.

“Q,” Riley says firmly. “Let me handle the clean-up. Go get some sleep.”

And so Q goes.

Sleeping in her office is both novel and nostalgic at the same time. It not like Q isn’t used to spending nights at headquarters, and for the same reason, even. Late nights at Q Branch because of Spectre is definitely a theme this year, and she relies mostly on muscle memory to fold herself into the perfect ball to fit on the couch.

What isn’t quite the same – in this context, at least – are the twin weights settling around her, Kitty claiming most of the cushion Q uses to pillow her head and Tabby settling on her stomach, as is the fact that Q can’t decide to just call it a day and head back – head home – for some time away from her all-consuming career.

Q tucks her face into Kitty’s fur, mindful of Kitty’s bruised side, and eventually falls asleep that way.

Riley tells her the next morning that it will be a week before she can go back to her flat. He doesn’t clarify whether that means the wreckage is bad enough to need that amount of time to fix or that it will take a whole week for the combined forces of the Double-Os and the Security Branch to ensure it’s actually safe for Q to return, and Q doesn’t ask. Instead, she declines the option of moving to a safehouse and scrambles to cat-proof at least parts of her Q Branch office and workshop – there’s a reason, after all, why the cats aren’t allowed into Q’s home workshop.

Tabby happily follows the willing cat-sitters from all sections of Q Branch while Kitty spends her time glaring at all the underlings who enter Q’s space and slinks as best she can when she needs to move, and Q carves out time to take herself to the mandatory psych session as trade for her favourite medic to look the cat over. Despite the medic’s constant reminders that she’s not a vet, she does send over a detailed health report on Kitty, the final statement stating that Kitty is only bruised – no broken bones, no internal injuries – and that she will recover with time underlined and bolded for good measure.

Q sits through a rather surreal meeting with M. They discuss the Spectre situation, the recent cyberattacks on both MI5 and MI6’s systems, and M even briefly inquires after Q’s wellbeing after the attack at her flat, but somehow the topic of the Double-Os – and one Double-O in particular – never comes up.

Before she leaves his office, however, M does speaks up one last time.

“You’re very good about being discreet, Q. I’ll like to continue not hearing about off-the-book deployments and misappropriation of weapons to supposed retired agents. The lack of explosions tied to MI6’s name has been very refreshing.”

From anyone else, Q would call that tone reprimanding, but from M it’s just factual.

Q spends the remainder of her time going after Spectre with a vengeance, keeping 004 and 0011 well occupied out in the field even as she leaves the domestic side of the issue to her capable team and to the Security Branch. Tanner comes down with beer midway through the week and Q breaks her own self-imposed rule on not drinking while on the clock to toast Tanner in commiseration.

“I suppose Bond’s hobby of resurrection applies to her career as well,” Tanner finally says when they’ve each gone through a bottle and are working their way through a second.

“Apparently,” Q replies, and that’s all they say on that matter.

The day before she’s allowed to return to her flat, Q goes to Whitehall and strolls idly down the street. It isn’t long before Moneypenny joins her; Q hands her a takeaway cup and they continue the stroll, Moneypenny sipping at her latte and Q at her green tea, the afternoon sun warm on their faces.

“Do I need a new panic alarm, then?” Q says.

Moneypenny doesn’t miss a beat. “Do you want another one?”

Q makes a quiet noise into her green tea. “Whose idea was it to make sure the alert went to Bond, yours or hers?”

“Jaime insisted, although it’s almost a given she would be on the list. The alert also cascaded to me and the Security Branch, for when she’s out of the city.” 

It’s a given, because guarding Q was Bond’s primary mission. Q blows out a quiet breath, irate, and feels irritated at herself for feeling irate. Of course Moneypenny knew about the arrangement, and of course she would keep it secret from both Q and Tanner. That’s the whole point of their need-to-know arrangement; the less Q knew the less she would inadvertently give away.

“She called me up one night, mentioned something about stalking the rest of Spectre off-the-books and off-the-radar,” Moneypenny says. “She changed her mind when she heard you were a target, took on the assignment herself.”

She stops right in the middle of the sidewalk, waits for Q to turn back to face her.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” Moneypenny says, her eyes dark and serious. “I don’t know the details of the arrangement Jaime made with M, but she made the call to make direct contact with you. It made guarding you easier, but Bond constantly dropping by your flat must have made you an even more tempting target. Oberhauser is obsessed with Jaime, and the rest of Spectre was focused on you, and you’re known associates of each other. With the two of you in such close proximity, you made a doubly attractive target; two birds with one stone.”

A sudden sharp smile flashes across Moneypenny’s face, a reminder that behind her tidy blouses and her delicate high heels resides an agent with field experience and a love for fast cars and sniper rifles. “Well, we turned the tables on them – took out their next level leadership in one fell swoop.”

“I suppose that’s the reason why I’m able to travel here without an escort,” Q says.

“And everyone lives to fight another day,” Moneypenny says, with a field agent’s blunt regard of their mortality.

Q is no stranger to danger. Sometimes they come in nebulous forms, the kind that undermine her power in technological spheres and threaten her anonymity. She walks London’s streets with oversized overcoats and scarves obscuring her features and her form, and she keeps her hand on some form of technology at all time, whether it’s her phone or a slim little taser pen. But she’s been shot at and physically threatened more times this past year than all the previous years put together and Q knows it will only get worse the longer she stays with MI6. She’s the Quartermaster, after all, as well as so much more now.

It’s a pleasant day, the afternoon sun chasing the chill of early spring away. Moneypenny is a reassuring presence at Q’s side, and Q looks down the expanse of the street, studying the memorial statues and monuments, the stately buildings with their age-old facades within which reside the heart of Her Majesty’s Government.

It’s safe here. They’ve worked hard to keep it that way.

Q curls her hand tighter around her takeaway cup and lifts it in a toast. “I’ll drink to that.”

\---

It’s not the first time Q has been back at her building in the past week – she’d put in a few appearances so her neighbours don’t suspect anything from her absence, and throws into the conversation the details the MI6 spin room had drilled into her head to strengthen the cover story of an explosion happening in the boiler room of the building.

But it is the first time she’ll actually walk into her flat after the attack, and Q finds herself standing at her front door for so long that her arms go numb, from the cold and from the weight of the cat carrier.

It isn’t the same front door she’d come home to for almost three years. Riley had pressed the new keys into her hand earlier that afternoon, and Q knows she’ll need to rework her entire security system from the ground up. This is her flat but it isn’t her front door, and Q isn’t sure why she can’t seem to process that fact and set it aside like she usually does.

Tabby meows an inquiry to her, and Q hugs the cat carrier to her chest, awkward hard edges and all, and finally sets it carefully down by her feet to pull the keys from her coat pocket.

She unbolts the door, catches herself before she tries to activate the no-longer existing biometric scanner, and glances down at her cats.

"Well," she says, "no time like the present," and turns the door knob before she can change her mind.

The little landing leading to her flat appears the same as ever, with just the faintest whiff of fresh paint and plaster in the air. Q goes through the motions like an automaton – coat off and tucked into the front closet, her boots left on a pile by the door, and finally, releasing the cats from the carrier. Tabby pokes her head out first, curious, and Kitty slinks out a moment later, her movements more natural and fluid as her injuries heal up.

Q pushes the cat carrier to one side to deal with later, and rises to her feet, pushing tendrils of hair that have pulled loose from her ponytail back from her face. Her hands itch – she’s missing a step in her routine, the checking of the camera feeds and reactivating her security system – and she can feel the restlessness prickling under her skin—

Kitty gives a little trill in her throat and dashes for the sitting room. Q glances at Tabby, who stares right back at her, unconcerned, and Q pushes back her earlier discomfit, her mind refocusing now that she has something to concentrate on.

What in the world is Kitty up to now?

Q walks slowly towards the sitting room, noting the changes, the fresh coats of paint and replaced fixings. She finds herself gritting her teeth and forces herself to relax, even as she braces herself for much more significant changes in the main spaces of the flat. It still doesn’t stop the little pang in her chest when she reaches the sitting room, almost everything in it new or repaired—

And there Bond is, asleep on Q's couch.

Q isn’t sure what she’s more surprised by – the fact that Bond is here, or that her breathy gasp doesn’t seem to wake Bond up.

Kitty has tucked herself into a round fuzzy ball by the hollow of Bond’s hip, formed by how the Double-O is curled slightly on her side. Bond’s appearance is at odds with her current posture – her hair is pulled back in a fishtail braid and she’s still wearing her trench coat, although it’s unbelted and unbuttoned, the folds falling loosely open. She looks like she’d come in and just fallen over exhausted, and even in slumber Bond never quite relaxes, one arm pulled to her side and the other almost hanging over the side of the couch, a direct trajectory to where the Walter PPK/S lays on the brand new coffee table.

Q stands on the edge of her sitting room, almost afraid to breath, and watches the slow rise and fall of Bond’s breathing.

She knows for a fact that Bond has been officially reinstated as a Double-O – her file, in all its redacted glory, appeared back on the system a few days ago – which means Bond should have access to all her MI6-given assets. Bond doesn’t need to break into Q’s flat again to find a safe and quiet place to sleep. She doesn’t even need to be here to protect Q, not with the UK fraction of Spectre in absolute tatters. Bond has no reason to be here when they now have a professional relationship to fall back on and Q’s mind is a quiet, buzzing mess, filled less with coherent thought and mostly of indescribable emotion.

She _is_ sure of one thing, however: Q is glad to find Bond here, in Q’s flat, her personal space, as if the events of the past week haven’t changed anything. She is glad, more than anything else, that despite officially regaining her status and her Double-O title and everything that comes with it that Bond had still chosen to come to _Q_.

Standing in the middle of a flat that feels half-foreign and unfamiliar isn’t quite the best time for Q’s territorial instinct to rear its head, but as much as Q appreciates the physical, treats her equipment and her inventions with respect and expects her agents to do the same, she’s always valued the intangible the most: power, recognition, respect.

Trust.

Q keeps her eyes on Bond when she crosses the sitting room, and gently scoops Kitty from the couch. Kitty grumbles at her but doesn’t protest when Q sets her on the floor. She’s used to the tight spaces that couches offer but it’s much more difficult with another person in the equation, and Q carefully folds herself into the space by Bond’s side, her back facing Bond, and is mindful not to block Bond’s gun hand.

This close, she can hear the way the quality of Bond’s breathing has changed.

When Bond moves, it's with a nimble burst of speed that Q always associates with her cats, and although she expects it, Q doesn't quite register the minutiae of what's happening until after it's happened.

Bond hums, her breath feathering over Q's curls, and pulls Q further into her, away from the treacherous edge of the couch. Her hands slide down Q's sides before they find the hem of Q's blouse and then slide back up, her fingers ten cold points against Q's skin. Q makes a quiet, almost squeaking noise and grabs instinctively for Bond's wrists, but Bond tightens her hold, pressing flush against Q's back, hands flattening against Q's stomach.

"I like you so much better out of your coats," Bond murmurs against the nape of her neck, and Q kicks back at her a little before Bond pins her down by the simple expediency of throwing one leg over Q's and letting her weight settle further on Q. Q considers thrashing for the principle of it, but it's been a long day and she's _tired_.

"Go back to sleep," she orders instead, wiggling to make herself more comfortable, and Bond's responding low laughter is like a purr Q feels against her spine.

"I was asleep before you displaced poor Katherine from her favourite napping spot."

Q doesn’t bother answering. Bond is a warm and solid presence at her back, and although Bond’s hands on Q’s stomach are the only points of skin-to-skin contact the physical closeness feels monumental, like they’ve finally crossed some long unspoken but always present boundary. Rather than overwhelming Bond’s touch is grounding, and Q concentrates on that feeling even as she stares out at the rest of her living room, a lingering discomfort still dogging at the edge of her mind.

Riley did an absurdly good job with the clean-up, Q has to admit. He hadn’t tried to duplicate the flat’s previous state and Q is grateful for that; coming back to a replica of her flat, where she would still be able to pick out all the tiny differences subconsciously or otherwise, would only drive Q insane. Instead, Riley had chosen to design the space in line with Q’s taste based on the way she’s set up her office and her workshop at Q Branch – Q can see echoes of her professional preferences everywhere.

It’s a good start, much better than Q expected now that she can process it logically rather than with her initial emotional gut-reaction, but that doesn’t mean Q can quite bring herself to turn away; if her security systems are no longer working, then she has to keep vigilant.

It’s irrational – Q has a Double-O in the flat, literally guarding her back – and yet.

One of Bond’s hands shifts, and then Q feels fingers work their way under her ponytail, pulling the hairtie loose. Q’s hair spills free and Bond cards her hand through the curls, smoothing it back, and then she digs her fingers against the back of Q’s head, gently massaging, the insistent pressure easing the tension. It’s incredibly relaxing and Q finds herself unwinding, her posture easing from stiff and tense to something more natural, and she tips her head back into Bond’s touch.

Bond’s hand shifts, sweeps Q’s hair over one shoulder, and then Q feels the press of lips against the nape of her neck, the faintest impression of teeth.

That bite sends a jolt down Q’s spine; unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome. Something had shifted between them when Q slid into Bond’s personal space, claimed that place at Bond’s side the way Bond had carved out a space for herself in Q’s personal life. Q could leave it at that nebulous, unspoken state, enjoy it for what it is—

“Why did you do it?” she says.

—or she could push for more.

This time, Q wants more.

Bond’s body language doesn’t betray a thing. Her fingers never waver in Q’s hair, her other hand on Q’s stomach doesn’t tense, and she doesn’t pull away. Q waits patiently; it’s almost comforting, holding a conversation this way. She’s used to speaking to Bond over a line, where they never make eye contact and Q can only rely on Bond’s voice to pick out the truth behind Bond’s words.

“Quite a few people have talked to me about the possibility of change these past years,” Bond says at last. “Ever since I was declared dead after Eve shot me from the top of the Varda Viaduct, and especially since I came back, that first time.” She goes quiet for a while, and when she speaks there’s an odd note in her voice. “I know myself, however, and I’m not capable of such immense change anymore. I might have been happy to leave MI6 behind if I was younger, if something happened earlier in my Double-O career, but…”

She trails off uncharacteristically, and Q hears a story in the words she does not speak, something that is hidden in the recesses of Bond’s highly redacted file. A lover, perhaps, or a significant situation that might have shaken Bond’s resolve as a Double-O.

“I’m set in my ways now. I enjoy being a Double-O. It defines me, defines my duty. But Madeleine was right; being a Double-O doesn’t mean I don’t have choices. I decided that I want more out of life than just my career. And I think I could find that, with you.”

It’s a shock, to hear that out loud. Q suspected it, of course she did, but they work for a clandestine governmental agency where secrecy and code-speak is practically a law, and such candidness is like an electric shock to the system.

Bond continues carding her hand through Q’s hair; it’s less for Q, for all that it is still soothing, and more for Bond herself – a distraction, perhaps, or a moment of connection as she pieces together the different aspects of her motivations. “I also didn’t want you to suffer the consequences of our association.”

Q shifts then, taps pointedly at Bond’s hand on her stomach. “You do understand that you didn’t bring Spectre down on my head, don’t you? No one else could have brought down the Nine Eyes program in time. It doesn’t matter if Spectre saw me with you in Austria, or that I was running around London with M and Tanner and Moneypenny that night. I marked myself a significant threat to their operations the moment I successfully blocked Nine Eyes from deploying; it didn’t really matter who I am or whether I was associated with you.”

“I know. But perhaps we could have hidden your identity better if I hadn’t called such overt attention to you in Austria.”

Q is careful to let a hint of amusement filter into her voice. “And so the obvious solution was to constantly break into my flat like that doesn’t draw further attention to me in any way.”

“Why not?” Bond replies in the same playful tone, but Q can tell she’s deadly serious the next moment. “I was careful, as much as I could be. I came back for myself, yes, but I also came back for you, after all.”

Bond runs her hand one final time through Q’s hair, and then tucks her arms back around Q, folding Q into a light embrace, present but undemanding. Q can read the implications: _you don’t have to say anything right now._

She almost doesn’t have to. It’s been obvious since the beginning that Q has always had difficulty saying no to Bond. That hasn’t really changed, for all that their association the past several months has been different: more personal, more intimate.

Q has no idea where this will go – Bond is terribly unpredictable, after all – but they’ve already built something new between them, undefined but undeniable. It wouldn’t be difficult at all to take that further.

It’s hard, convincing herself that she can let her guard down, but Q tangles her hand with one of Bond’s and twists in her embrace, turning to face Bond, doing her best to ignore the way her exposed back prickles.

There are dark smudges under Bond’s eyes – she and 0010 must have run themselves to the ground, chasing the Spectre lead to the very end – but she’s alert and her eyes are very calm. She lifts her free hand and brushes Q’s bangs from her eyes, tucks a curl behind Q’s ear, and simply waits.

Q likes it here like this, this tranquillity amidst the chaos that is their lives and their chosen professions. There’s a part of Q that is still waiting for another attack, the power around the flat going out and the startling crash as the enemy forces past her front door, but having Bond here helps, as do the memories of the past several months: Bond with a takeaway cup and a paperbag of pastries in her hands; the sound of Bond’s laughter, so rarely heard; the cats and the way Bond interacts with them, teasing and playful and affectionate; even Bond with the medical kit, sewing up a gash or patching up a wound, because no matter how gruesome her injuries are it still means that she’s _alive_.

Q pulls their clasped hands to her chest and locks gazes with Bond. “I want more out of life than just my career as well. And I want you to stay.”

Bond’s smile is an elusive and precious thing; she lifts their entwined hands to press a kiss to Q’s fingers. “Then I’ll stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not quite the end of the fic - there is still an epilogue which should hopefully tie up the last loose ends of this story! (If you look at the tags carefully, you'll probably figure out what the epilogue is about). 
> 
> It has been a joy writing fem!00Q, and I've grown very fond of these incarnations of them. I did not start out to write a _Spectre_ -based fic either, but it turns out I have a lot to say about the movie and this is my subtle way of... fixing and explaining things, I suppose. 
> 
> I've had the epilogue in mind since the early days of plotting this fic, so please do stick around for it. I'll post it as soon as I have a moment free - it's Lunar New Year eve today ^^, so probably late on Saturday or on Sunday. 
> 
> \--
> 
> _Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. -- Vicktor E. Frankl._


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Doesn't anyone from your organization know how to use a phone? It's much more discreet than masquerading as a patient for a chance to talk to me."
> 
> "Phone calls leave traces, and some things are better discussed in person," Q says.

There is a polite knock on the door, and Q glances up from the waiting chair, hand going up to adjust her glasses.

Q is fond of her shapeless overcoats and oversized scarves, but sometimes she needs to dress for the weather or for manoeuvrability, and on rare occasions, to make an impression. Q knows the instant she’s been recognized, because instead of the rote greeting she is met with silence.

Then—

"Doesn't anyone from your organization know how to use a phone? It's much more discreet than masquerading as a patient for a chance to talk to me."

"Phone calls leave traces, and some things are better discussed in person," Q says. She doesn't move, and Swann walks into view, her steps sure and steady, her clipboard held loosely at her side.

"At least you're much more polite than the last person who did this."

She stares down at Q for a long moment, chin subtly raised, before her calm, unruffled demeanour kicks back in and she sits fluidly in the chair opposite Q. The clipboard goes on the little side table, and Swann leans back, her body language open – fully in control of the situation, but passive.

Q has attended enough mandatory psychiatric evaluations to recognize a professional at work, but it doesn't mean she's immune to the effects. Swann is cool and calm and – Q can't find another word for it – compelling; she won't be a friend or a confidant or a crutch, but she will certainly open her patient's eyes to other alternatives, other perspectives, and give them the confidence to believe they _will_ succeed.

Yes, there's a reason why Madeleine Swann was the Hoffler Klinik’s most sought after psychiatrist; she'd tamed even MI6's most infuriating Double-O, after all.

"Are you comfortable speaking openly here," Q says, "or would you prefer somewhere else?"

Swann stares at her for a long moment, a slight smile flitting across her lips. It's a smile devoid of humour, and Q realizes with a start that that question wouldn't sound at all out of place coming from Swann, if she were truly meeting a new patient right now.

"It's just," Q hurries to say, "tables have ears and walls have eyes. And it's been a messy, stressful year."

Swann concedes that point with a short nod, and then glances pointedly around the office, at the clunky old laptop and the simple desk phone. They're hardly the stuff of spyware and detection, which makes them painfully easy to hijack and tap into, but Swann has taped up the laptop camera lenses and unplugged the phone entirely. Q supposes if she had seen the Spectre base with her own eyes, she would be a lot more paranoid than she already is.

Q has already secured the entire facility as well as appropriated the nearest broadcast tower, and she has the two CCTV cameras at the front and back entrances on a loop. She won't say a word about it unless Swann asks, however. Such total and complete control of the surveillance in an area can make people feel trapped instead of secure, and it's enough for Q to know she has that control – she doesn't need to lord it over anyone.

"You're good with technology," Swann says. "I remember. I’m fine speaking here. What did you want to discuss?"

Q pauses, considering her thoughts. She has a list – Q always has a list, actionable points she needs to attend to before she goes to the next item so everything falls in sequence – but she's also quick on her feet; she knows when it's time to drop the neat little structured queue and just improvise _._

"Are you happy like this?" Q says, and immediately winces – too direct, too personal, when she doesn’t really know Swann at all.

Swann laughs, short and quiet, and humouring Q, answers in a tone that doesn't bite as much as it should. "It's different world, I will admit that. Volunteering with the local clinics as a therapist might actually be more challenging than dealing with the kind of clients I'm used to. But what you're really asking is if I would have chosen this over my previous career, the life I've built with my own two hands."

"Well. Yes."

"I can't practice as a psychiatrist when I have no resume or accreditations to show for my years of study and experience, and Jaime advised me to keep a low profile, at least for now." Swann tilts her head to the side. “Although I hear that Spectre isn’t quite a problem any longer, at least in this country.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Out of respect for their tenuous association, Q doesn’t display any of her technology, her phone tucked in the pocket of her parka and her laptop carefully enclosed in her customary messenger bag, but even without her technology in hand, Q still speaks her next words with complete confidence. “I can give you any new identity you want. If you’d like to make your own way back on the Continent, I can ensure that no one can trace your new life back to your life as Mr. White’s daughter. Or, if you prefer, I can give you back your entire history as Madeleine Swann, with modifications as a precaution, of course.” Q taps her fingers lightly against her knee, as if typing out a sequence. “The latter would be more difficult, because it means I have to go back and modify all your records, but I can do it.”

Swann studies Q for a long moment; her poise has the same sense of stillness as Bond’s does, where her body language doesn’t betray a thing. “Why?”

It’s not distrust that colours Swann’s tone; she’s simply lived a life too full of deception to trust anyone by their word alone.

“Why not?” Q answers, because that’s really the crux of it. “I’m similar to Spectre in that I have the skills to effect such drastic change. I don’t agree with Spectre’s operations, and you don’t deserve what Spectre did to you any more than Bond does. You didn’t have to help Bond in Morocco nor did you have to follow her back to London that night, but you did. I devote a significant part of my efforts to safeguarding the agents under my care, and although you’re not affiliated with MI6 in any way you still helped us. I have the necessary skillsets to make a difference in your life. So why wouldn’t I? I don’t really have a good reason not to.”

Swann stares at Q, and then a quiet smile steals over her face. "Jaime didn't ask you to do this."

"What? No." Q thinks on that for a moment, and then concedes, "Although it would be like her to want you to be reinstated so she duck out of the mandatory psych evaluations she needs to stay an agent by claiming her conversations with you count."

She thinks on that some more, and sighs. "But it wouldn't be the only reason why she would ask me to help you. It wouldn't even be the main reason."

"I know," Swann says, and the certainty in her voice would be shocking except that for all of Bond's chaotic unpredictability, Q knows there are some things about Bond that are constant, immutable. "But it doesn't mean she wouldn't take advantage of the situation. You came here with her, didn’t you?"

“Yes – Bond says you’re good at hiding, and I didn’t want to compromise your cover by deliberately searching you out.”

“I’m sure,” Swann says, and flows to her feet like a ballerina, every step sure and graceful. She goes to the door, opens it, and waits.

A minute later, Bond slips through with such grace and self-assurance that that if Q didn’t know exactly who Bond is, she might mistake the Double-O as another therapist or doctor working for the clinic. Bond’s eyes sweep the room, and when she’s satisfied with the area check, alight immediately on Q.

There’s nothing quite like being in the centre of a Double-O’s attention, Bond’s regard almost as heady as champagne, but Q schools her expression to utmost calmness, and a moment later Swann shuts the door with an audible click.

Unfazed by Bond’s seeming disregard, Swann sweeps past Bond for her seat. The pen and the clipboard stay on the side table; Swann simply laces her fingers together over one knee, not quite the therapist at work but not quite relaxed either. “You are a terrible influence, troublemaker.”

Bond finally looks away, turning to face Swann, and a grin steals over her face a moment later, the lopsided smile that only appears for people that Bond is fond of. “As much as I’d love the credit, Q makes her own choices; she does what she wants, when she wants to. It’s not my fault she likes turning up in unexpected places.”

“You could have mentioned that I would soon have a visitor when you sent me that message on Spectre’s demise.”

“I could,” Bond concedes. “But Q didn’t ask to meet you until after that.” She stalks across the room and leans her hip against the edge of a low cabinet, taking up a position similar to the one she always assumes when she’s observing Q at work in her workshop or at the main observation lab: standing out of the way at a distance, a silent acknowledgment that she’s in Q’s territory and that Q is in charge of current operations.

The fact that it literally allows Bond to watch Q’s back is a plus.

“I suppose I only have myself to blame for insisting you contact me just twice a month at most unless it’s an emergency,” Swann says.

“I do occasionally, at the bottom of my murderous heart, worry.” Bond slants a glance at Q. “Have you told Madeleine about your proposal?”

“I have,” Q says, and doesn’t bother to elaborate. The dynamic between Swann and Bond is fascinating, and Q is content to recede back into her customary role – a near-silent observer watching the events from afar.

It’s the most animated Q has seen Swann, in person and via the public surveillance cameras, and there’s a challenging light in her eyes, finally breaking through the cool professionalism. And Bond is only ever this casually blunt with people she trusts, who knows her for who and what she is. Swann might be the first civilian – that Q knows of – that Bond is so honest with. 

They’re good for each other, and Q is glad for that. Of course, it helps that Bond stays on Q’s side of the room, but she tries her best to push that territorial possessiveness to one side.

“So what will it be,” Bond says, a smirk in her voice, “back to Austria to continue your life as a prestigious and highly sought after psychiatrist? Or something a little more adventurous now that you no longer have to hide in the shadows?”

“I suspect there is nothing more adventurous than having you in the vicinity, Jaime. And my definition of ‘vicinity’ is very broad. The entire British Isles isn’t vast enough.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing I’ll be occupied when I’m back in London after missions.”

Swann is sharp; her eyes sweep from Bond to Q, assessing. When she looks back at Bond, there’s a quiet smile on her face. “A good choice. Congratulations.”

For some unfathomable reason, Q feels her face heating up.

“I gather from that conversation,” she says, ignoring the way the other two are looking at her, amused – in Bond’s case – and quietly vindicated – in Swann’s – “that you prefer to stay in the United Kingdom.”

“I’ve learned to enjoy my time here, and I wouldn’t mind making Edinburgh my new permanent home,” Swann says. “You said that it would be more difficult, but if possible, I would like to have my credentials and my accomplishments back.”

“Q can do it,” Bond says. The shade of her smile is different this time, not quite the usual dazzling, charming ones or the lopsided grins, endearing in their imperfection; it’s tender and knowing, a smile of utmost confidence on Q’s behalf. “She always finds a way.”

Swann keeps her gaze fixed on Q, however; she knows exactly whose skills she needs to get the most important aspects of her previous life back, and she won’t accept assurance from anyone but Q herself.

It’s vindicating, to have that acknowledgment. Q’s life is one of constant contradiction – she hides her identity while navigating the nebulous world of cyberspace to ensure that her skills to speak for themselves, and yet she constantly strives to establish herself as the Quartermaster at MI6, to demonstrate that she, the person behind the codename, is worthy of that title. Q hasn’t forgotten how freeing it was to be herself, to have someone who knows who and what she is and yet is removed from the politics and expectations of the Secret Service.

She’d found that with Bond, during the months of Bond’s seeming retirement. And Swann, who counters Bond in her mercurial moods with her own self-assurance, who takes Bond’s field agent gallows humour in stride and gives back as good as she gets, and who is independent enough to draw boundary lines that assert her own independence and wants—

Friendships are hard to maintain in Q’s line of work, but Q is still glad to make Swann’s acquaintance properly this time.

“I did say I would do it,” Q says. She tucks open her messenger bag, pulls her familiar laptop into her lap. “You’re going to hear from me quite a bit over the next few weeks.”

“I look forward to it,” Swann says.

“So I see how it is,” Bond murmurs. “I’m restricted to twice a month calls but Q gets to contact you any time.”

Swann ignores her with ease, although she does straighten a moment later to slide a folder in Bond’s direction as a distraction. Q boots up her laptop and begins typing, and she’s halfway through hacking into the Austrian civilian database to pull Swann’s records when she hears a quiet, “Thank you.”

Q glances over the top of her laptop. Swann isn’t quite looking in her direction, half listening to Bond’s musings on the folder – related to one of those side trip missions Bond kept taking, no doubt – but a moment later she turns to meet Q’s gaze.

“You’re welcome,” Q simply says, and turns back to her laptop.

\---

It’s late afternoon when they finally leave the clinic, Q having built the foundations of Swann’s new identity – heavily tied to her life as Madeleine Swann, but separate enough not to attract undue attention. She’d also offered to modify Swann’s records on the clinic roster to justify a patient taking up four hours of Swann’s time – partly to head off Bond’s suggestion that she run interference in her usual chaotic way – and Swann had waved them both off.

Q steps out into the sunlight with her phone in her pocket and her messenger bag slung firmly over one shoulder, her work put aside for the day, and immediately spots the Aston Martin DB5 parked along the sidewalk like an elegant Persian cat.

She stops right there on the sidewalk, staring at the silver-birch frame, familiar from hundreds of hours she’d spent rebuilding it, and Bond takes her surprise in stride, tucking an arm around Q’s waist.

When Bond speaks, it’s practically into Q’s ear. “I’m finally free to return to my apartment in London, so it seems a good time to bring the DB5 back as well.”

There’s a soft jangle of metal striking metal, and Q turns her head to see the car keys dangling from Bond’s fingers.

“I’m glad to see that you kept her in one piece,” Q says, and then twists in Bond’s hold to press a kiss to the corner of Bond’s mouth, catching Bond’s hand to maintain her balance. Bond tilts her head immediately to deepen the kiss, and Q lets her indulge for a long minute before she turns her head smoothly and takes a long step back, the car keys tucked between her fingers.

She gives Bond a triumphant smile and steps off the sidewalk, crossing the street to the DB5. She runs an affectionate hand across the bonnet and along the doorframe, and then unlocks the doors and slides into the driver’s seat, turning easily to stash her messenger bag in the backseat.

By the time Bond opens the passenger door and slides in, Q has almost finished making the necessary adjustments. Q doesn’t work alone, has always partnered with a Weapons and Engineering team on their automobile projects, but she’s the lead designer and engineer for this particular model and so it’s easy to adjust the car seat and the mirrors, to turn the ignition and study the dashboard symbols, to double-check on the special modifications that makes any Q Branch automobile stand out from their civilian counterpart.

Bond’s voice is calm and considering when she speaks. “You don’t have a driver’s license.”

“I modify automobiles; it’s one of my areas of expertise and I rebuilt your car from the ground up. I know how to drive this car, even if I don’t have the license to show for it. After all, it’s not like legalities have ever really mattered to us.”

“You’re the one who always rails at me to follow procedure,” Bond points out.

Q pulls the seat belt across her chest and backs out of the parking spot carefully, if only so she doesn’t have to look at Bond when she admits, “Well, I’ve always broken the rules for you, so.” She catches a glimpse of Bond’s expression from the corner of her eye, and hurries on. “I don’t want you destroying or blowing up another car. I’ve put a lot of work into the DB5, so I’m driving it. It’s mine, technically. I might have gifted it to you, but since you’re back with the Secret Service it really belongs to me and to Q Branch.”

She normally drives with strict adherence to the highway code, prefers to leave the stress and performance tests to those with the credentials and skills to push the car to their limits without endangering themselves, but they’re on a straight road with very little traffic, and so Q dares to take her eyes off the road for a few seconds, to meet Bond’s gaze.

“And this time, it’s my turn to drive off on a new journey with a beautiful woman in my passenger seat.”

The heat that flares to life in Bond’s eyes, so very different from her cool and calm expression, is jolting but welcomed, and Q forces her attention back on the road because if she starts staring she’ll never stop, and getting into a crash because she can’t pay attention would contradict Q’s earlier statement that she doesn’t want this car to be destroyed.

When Bond speaks, her voice is alto-low and very sensual. “You’re aware that you’re getting more than just a beautiful woman in your passenger seat, Q.” She doesn’t reach across the gearbox to touch Q, but her stare is almost tangible on Q’s skin all the same.

“Later, Bond,” Q says, more of a promise than a reprimand.

Bond laughs, that same musical sound that Q has only ever heard in the privacy of her flat; it’s beautiful and joyous, and Q’s hands tighten around the steering wheel, her heart soaring at the sound of it.

“Later, then,” Bond says, with a note in her voice that says later might be sooner than Q thinks, possibly when they next hit a traffic light.

Q is looking forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~I'm not salty at all about the baity way _Spectre_ ended, what are you talking about?~~
> 
> So here it is, the fic in full :) I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this canon-based AU. 
> 
> Please remember to view beili's artwork on [AO3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9291590)/[Tumblr](http://beili.tumblr.com/post/155856245256/one-of-my-propmts-for-the-2016-2017-round-of), and drop them a comment/like/reblog for the gorgeous image that inspired this entire story. Thanks ♥

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [known associates](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9291590) by [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili)




End file.
